The Recipes We Love To Hate: 11 Rage-Bait Recipes That Absolutely Infuriate Our Food Editors
The internet makes us laugh, it makes us cry, and sometimes, it makes us question reality. Social media has become the launchpad for some of the most inventive and ingenious new recipes. But one online enclave shares meal ideas that are anything but appetizing.
Rage-bait recipes take familiar food video formats and subvert them into frustrating, grotesque parodies of the real thing. Whether it’s a heinous ingredient mashup, ridiculous excess, or obtuse applications of culinary techniques, the hallmark of a rage-bait recipe is pure chaos. The intent is to annoy us, and they manage to do it with ease.
I polled our team of food lovers to see what types of rage-bait recipes infuriate them the most. And, to nobody’s surprise, there was no shortage of anger-inducing content. We rounded up some of the most common tropes in rage-bait recipe videos. Apologies in advance if you end up losing your appetite.
Countertop Service
Why serve things on trays or serving dishes when you can just serve food directly on the table? We've seen everything from nachos to spaghetti to mashed potatoes. While straight-to-table service can be culturally and contextually appropriate, this is not what we're talking about.
Giant Blocks Of Cheese
This trope is so prominent that the mere sight of a gigantic block of cheddar in a baking dish is enough to trigger my fight or flight response. Haven't we learned from Tini? Even if you're not willing to make a roux, you should at the very least use shredded cheese.
Cursed Sweet & Savory Combinations
Salty-sweet pairings aren't inherently a bad thing, but some rage-bait videos take it to the extreme. We'll enjoy a fry in a Frosty any day, but ice cream belongs nowhere near a bowl of ramen.
Drawers Galore
Unconventional serving dishes can be fun and whimsical—within reason. Building a meal directly in a drawer is a step too far. From multilayer tiramisu to just straight up milk, we've seen drawers used in infuriating ways. Imagine the cleanup!
Monstrous Mashups
Is it pasta? Is it a hot dog? Is it a burger? Rage-bait recipes take all of those components and turn them into a meal worse than the sum of its parts. We've had enough!
Feeding A Non-Existent Army
Do we love a batch cocktail? Of course. Do we like making enough food to enjoy leftovers later? Certainly. But do we need to make a multi-gallon jungle juice in the kitchen sink? We think not. Our assistant digital food producer Mackenzie Filson says that these are "wasteful" and exist only to get people heated.
Cursed Cocktails
The humble martini has ballooned into a gigantic category, with derivatives in countless different flavors. Pornstar and espresso martinis technically aren't martinis, but they're so delicious that we'll give them a pass. What we won't accept are cocktail abominations like a bagel and lox martini. Our designer Alison Dominguez is "over it."
“Hacks”
We love a good hack, as long as it makes cooking easier. But rage-bait recipe creators love presenting disgusting flavor combinations guised as hacks. Enough! In the words of our senior director of content operations Lindsay Ramsey: "I'm upset."
Anything But A Plate
Anybody who has spent time in the subreddit r/wewantplates is well-aware of the rampant use of unconventional serving dishes. Bacon on a clothesline, charcuterie clipboards, spaghetti on a shovel—take any object in the world, and food has probably been served on it. That doesn't make it okay.
Maddening Misnomers
Sometimes the problem with rage-bait isn't the recipe itself—it's the way it's sold. There's nothing inherently wrong with a bowl of pickles, but why are we calling it cereal? This video in particular ruined digital director Katelyn Lunders's day.
Questionable Techniques
The ingredients and concept behind some rage-bait recipes are infuriating enough. The way the meals are made, however, have the ability to send us into a full blown tantrum. Few creators are as guilty of this as @barfly7777, like in this recipe for bouillabaisse made in a bathroom sink.
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