Sometimes, despite our greatest efforts, things just seem not to go our way. On those days, whether because of inattention, rushing, ignorance, or anything else, we may accidentally mess up something that could’ve been perfectly good.Cooking is one of the activities most prone to this kind of back luck. In thisReddit post, both professionals and amateurs share their greatest accidental kitchen misfortunes that have ever befallen them on one of those unlucky days. Scroll down to read what they wrote!More info:RedditThis post may includeaffiliate links.
Sometimes, despite our greatest efforts, things just seem not to go our way. On those days, whether because of inattention, rushing, ignorance, or anything else, we may accidentally mess up something that could’ve been perfectly good.
Cooking is one of the activities most prone to this kind of back luck. In thisReddit post, both professionals and amateurs share their greatest accidental kitchen misfortunes that have ever befallen them on one of those unlucky days. Scroll down to read what they wrote!
More info:Reddit
This post may includeaffiliate links.
Was hosting a few people for a pretty fancy dinner. I’d prepped dessert during the day - fresh apricots poached in white wine and light syrup, to be served with marscapone. I had beautiful duck breasts for main course. Everything was superb.After the first two courses, I went to get the dessert and the syrup looked slightly odd - darker streaks in it, which I hadn’t seen on previous times I made it. I checked it and it TASTED slightly odd. Then I identified the taste… Evidently when I’d taken the duck out of the fridge to cook it, I’d managed to tilt the plate and tipped a little bit of duck blood into the fully prepared apricots. Absolutely no way to save them, straight in the bin they went. I was devastated 😭
Msg helps to make my savoury dishes taste good right? So 17 year old me thought it would go great in the chocolate cake I was making for my grandads birthday. I put a heaped teaspoon in for good measure too.Folks, let me tell you, mistakes were definitely made that day.
My mom made chicken stock. And young me at 10, trying to be helpful, threw the stock away, thinking it was “waste water from cooking the ingredients” and washed the pot for her.Needless to say, my mom was NOT pleased. And she was asian mom level displeased.
Made fried shallots and you strain them out of the oil before putting them on paper towels to make sure they’re crispy. It all has to happen quickly because they can easily overcook.Well, I drained the pot of fried shallots and boiling oil into a plastic strainer. Melted straight through and I was left with a rimless basketball hoop and a bowl of plasticky, shallot-y oil.
We went to Costco on Monday to get a bunch of stuff for my in-laws.We had just been there over the weekend for ourselves so we didn’t really need anything but realized we didn’t get any boneless skinless chicken breasts so we decided to grab some. Fast forward to today and my wife complains about her car smelling funky on her drive into work. On her way home it’s gotten even worse, she asks me to smell it - it’s pretty unbearable. Yup, we’d left like 10lb of chicken in the trunk for two or so days at 85F.Luckily only air had escaped the packs, though they were all ballooned up and looked like they were ready to blow.Opening the trunk was an experience I don’t want to have again - her car is RIPE right now, we have the garage open with the trunk open and all the windows down with a couple sticks of incense burning.
Made a big batch of tzatziki sauce once at work and accidentally used the vanilla yogurt instead of the plain. Absolutely disgusting.
Accidentally made icing with corn starch instead of icing sugar. It tasted “zippy” ;)
Had extended family over for Thanksgiving. Decided to make (for the first time) fresh home made gravy from giblets, onions, carrots, celery, sage, etc etc. Simmered it lovingly and carefully on the back burner the entire time was roasting the turkey, preparing the sides, etc etc. Finally it was time to serve it. Got out my trusty colander….. and watched helplessly as I accidentally poured the entire saucepan of gravy down the sink
This weekend I made a lovely mushroom soup - https://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-minnesota-wild-rice-mushroom-soup-recipes-from-the-kitchn-164295#post-recipe-10445 - my first soup of the season! Right towards the end I realised I had left a bit of the stock from the rice in a cup in my sink (had drained the rice and left the colander sitting on the cup in my sink, as I often do), having intended to put the stock in the soup along with the rice. So I threw it in the soup and continued on. Of course I had completely forgotten that I had already squeezed soap over the dishes in my sink and then got distracted…. so I made soap soup. Had to throw it all out, F- do not recommend.
In my early days of cooking I was determined to make sesame chickenWhen confronted with garlic I learned the difference between a “clove” and a “bulb” that day, christ that dark, garlicky sludge still haunts my taste buds
I was on a baking spree this past weekend. I baked a cake, 30+ waffles and homemade pasta. Turns out my flour was sour.
I was making myself an Old Fashioned with a pretty good single barrel bourbon. Added the simple syrup, bitters, and orange peel to the glass to muddle, then added 4 ounces of the $80 bourbon. Dropped in the ice, stirred, and dropped in 2 Luxardo cherries. This is gonna be a high class cocktail experience, let me tell you! Went to take my first sip and noticed a distinct smoky nose to it, which was definitely not right… Tasted it and got a mouthful of deep chemical smoke flavor…Went to the cabinet and retrieved my “bitters”, and realized that I had instead grabbed a bottle of liquid smoke!$15 worth of bourbon down the drain… Devastating 😂
Used too much sesame oil first time trying it.. inedible..
My Rottweiler ate my linguine as I was feeding dough through my KitchenAid. Does that count?
My best friend once spent hours making the perfect, clear turkey stock. You could see the bottom of the pot, it didn’t boil once. All the leftover goodness from the holiday condensed into liquid bliss.He then put a colander in the sink and strained the lot down the drain, saving the bones and waste. His dear mother was sitting in the kitchen and she said ‘X, did you just…? Oh, honey, you better just go outside to your mancave’.The pain is still there in his heart.
Was making a tuna noodle casserole, and added crushed up potato chips on top. Put it under the broiler on the top rack and proceed to wait. A minute or two later the oven starts making some weird beeping it’s never done before and the display is just blinking FIRE.Sure enough, open the oven and the chips are on fire. I tried scraping off the top half of the casserole, but the burnt oil flavor had seeped through the whole thing. In the garbage it went.It seems so dumb in hindsight-putting it on the TOP rack under a GAS broiler. But I am proud to say I haven’t set any casseroles on fire since then :)
In my early 20s and as a young wife, I tried to make fried chicken. Once the crust became pale yellow, I felt it looked as good as churches chicken, a fast food place that has a light golden crust. It was completely raw on the inside and wasted lots of chicken, hours of my time, and my dignity. Lol
Really early in learning to cook; I was prepping a beautiful Capon. I reached for a can of cooking spray to give a the bird a spray & after giving it a good long once over,realized too late I’d hit it with Lysol. Tried rinsing it but it still reeked of Lysol so yep,in the trash it went. Grilled cheese anyone?
One of the first times I was making stroganoff and my broth wasn’t thick enough. I remember my mom adding flour to it to thicken it. Well, I kept pouring flour in. Probably close to a cups worth. It was thick alright but tastes awful. Totally ruined it. I affectionately named it “glue-ganoff”
I didn’t ruin it, but I made a wedding cake that the groom said only going 2 blocks and 2 turns so a box isn’t needed. The best man was holding it. It made it 1.5 blocks and one turn. Luckily one store in town had a decent size cake and could decorate it quickly. The cake made it to the reception 15 minutes before the bride and groom got there.
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I have been making meat loaf for years and have perfected making it to my taste. Part of that is to add some Worcester sauce to the mixture. I distractedly reached into my pantry for a brown bottle of sauce and chucked it into the mixture. It was not Worcester. It was toasted sesame oil. At that point, there was no point of return.I’d like to say that I had somehow fumbled my way into a new and exiting concoction. One that would spawn a cooking blog, success and recognition as an innovative home chef.Yeah. No. It was not good. I got through a bit of it because I was super hungry. It was worse on day 2, when I thought I’d try one of my favorite things, a delicious meat loaf sandwich. Ew.
I made peach cookies that smelled fantastic while baking. Had to spit out my first bite it was so salty. Went back to the recipe and noticed I quadrupled the amount of baking soda. It pained me to toss them because they were made with fresh peaches a friend had grown.My mom once added liquid dish soap to a cake she was making for my sister’s class party. She was supposed to add oil…
I’ve almost entirely quit buying spice mixes for that very reason. Every damn one seems to have salt as its first ingredient…And I love salt but god damn.
One time I bought like 30 dollars worth of ingredients for a HUGE pan of Mac n cheese. Used a recipe, followed it to a T, and it turned out absolutely horrendous. So eggy and dry. It was such a waste. I’ve ruined/burned plenty of things but that one always stands out to me.
When I was a kid I put buttermilk on my cereal.
I burn garlic more than I are to admit. And there’s fewer things as toxic as burnt garlic
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Made a beautiful chicken stock, strained it through a colander but forgot to put a pan under it. It went down the drain. 😢
I wouldn’t say ruined, but not wasting avocados can be annoyingly tricky
A whole Costco pork shoulder. Was on the smoker overnight, I missed my middle of the night alarm and woke up to it being in the danger zone with no idea how long. Not worth the risk to give a whole party food poisoning. I felt terrible.
Ate anyway but nutmeg chicken with 3 tablespoons of nutmeg. Spaghetti sauce starter.Not edible though a friend loved them, hockey puck rolls.
Big pot of Cajun shrimp pasta with WAY too much cayenne. I don’t mind some heat but it was too much. Thought I’d be okay eyeballing it as I usually do but I was just way f*****g off lol.
I just made a soup recipe that called for frozen ravioli, but my store was out, so I subbed frozen tortellini. It turned into one large and sloppy tortellini in the instant pot, but the bottom was burnt. It was….very gelatinous.
He accidentally swapped Cinnamon for Cayenne once. This was in my earliest forays in the kitchen. To be fair, they are very similar in consistency and color. Ruined a whole batch of chili. A dash of Cinnamon would’ve probably been ok, but that was all you could taste.
salt is probably the most common culprit. ruined a batch of pasta using salted water, too much to salt to use with parm later in pan. now salt is accounted for at every step.made mole with some friends one night. no one had ever had mole before other than myself. none of us had tried making it ever. used a well rated recipe. called for whole clove. too much was used so how (?) and the whole pot tasted like a chocolate tomato djarum cig. it was edible but overall very unappealing for how much work went in.
One time I made a burrito with fried rice, homemade general tso chicken, fried cabbage, and water chestnuts and wanted just a splash of soy sauce one I bit off the top…Worcestershire is what I grabbed…Like, even the relatively small bit of Worch in that burrito f****d it to the point I couldn’t stand to eat.
Did something similar with Cajun spice mix. Generously sprinkled it on some chicken breast. It was soooo salty. We powered through it. It was not quite inedible. But close.My most memorably ruined food item was peanut brittle. I mistakenly thought I could substitute sugar water for corn syrup. I lived pretty far from civilization at the time (30 minute drive minimum to the nearest store) and still hopped in the car to go get more ingredients to try again. What a disaster that was.
tried to make a cake but used a pan that was too big and i think i forgot something. it just smoked up the whole place.
Awww, you could have used that chicken in a soup! Simmering it in water would’ve drawn some of the salt out, I’m sure.I once bought like 8 packs of tofu at once thinking they were shelf stable. I don’t know why I thought this… maybe the water they’re packed in reminded me of pickle brine. So I kept them in the pantry. Opened one after 3 weeks, noticed it had an off smell and immediately realized what I’d done 😭 So much tofu… wasted. I still feel so bad.
You can sometimes make like chicken salad with mayo and it can help.One time my dad put so much garlic salt on a pork tenderloin and it was also inedible. Needless to say the garlic salt was thrown out and now we just have garlic powder and salt. We also have a fresh garlic too but that’s given.
I found a recipe online for a cheesy chicken crock-pot meal. I put all the ingredients in the crock-pot before I left for work. When I got home, the entire house smelled like vomit. I’m not sure what happened in the cooking process, but the food not only smelled like vomit, but looked like it, as well. The whole meal went into the trash. It stank up our outside garbage cans so bad that our landlord said something to us about it. The garbage cans had to be bleached after the trash pick up that week.
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