If you’re an adventurous eater, you may have received odd looks when you ordered food or served it at home. Think peanut butter and pickles or apples and grilled cheese.
Not many appreciate unusual food combinations. However, they may be missing out on some delicious treats. Just because it hasn’t been done before doesn’t mean it shouldn’t, right?
These food combinations may be bizarre or unusual to some, but we can attest they’re worth a try!
While pairing an apple with your grilled cheese may seem odd, don’t knock it until you try it. Especially if it’s a tart apple, like a Granny Smith or a Macintosh, the combination will give you a great complementary pair of fresh, crunchy, and rich.
Cheese calls for some acidity and apples are great at offering it. Besides, tomatoes are fruits, too, so what’s so odd about pairing cheese with fruit?
We find that unsweetened peanut butter, with its velvety texture, calls for something crunchy. Pickles are crunchy, salty, and tangy. They enhance the flavor of the peanut butter and add fresh notes of their own.
Try a peanut butter sandwich with a few pickles on the side. You’ll probably love the combination unless you hate pickles or peanut butter.
While we don’t find vanilla ice cream boring, we think it would greatly benefit from adding a stronger, saltier taste. You know, like that provided by soy sauce. Now, don’t go overboard and mix equal amounts of ice cream and soy sauce, or you’ll taste nothing but salt.
However, a few drops of soy sauce on your vanilla ice cream will awaken the smooth vanilla taste and give it an umami taste.
What’s richer than bacon? Well, chocolate is a good answer. Yet, would these two go well together? According to some, bacon goes well with everything.
In this case, they’re not wrong. Bacon and chocolate work well together because they’re both rich and have bitter undertastes. Besides, if you’ve ever enjoyed a breakfast of bacon and pancakes, you know bacon goes well with sweet treats. So, why not try it with chocolate? You may find a new favorite snack.
This one may not strike you as odd if you’ve ever had a BLT or a club sandwich. These sandwiches routinely use mayonnaise and tomatoes together. Yet tomatoes and mayo work well together, even without the crunchy bacon or the lettuce.
There’s something about the creamy texture of mayo that perfectly complements a ripe tomato. It also brings a hint of saltiness that enhances the sweet taste of this unassuming fruit.
Chocolate is a dark, strong, and very rich flavor. You’d think it would clash with black pepper because the combination would be too one-sided. However, that’s not the case.
The spiciness and earthy flavor of the black pepper bring the richness of chocolate to life and give it an edge. Light chocolate ice cream will gain an extra layer of taste, while dark chocolate ice cream will incorporate the peppery taste into its existing rich flavor. You can’t go wrong with either.
Many argue that sweet toppings don’t belong on pizza, and the ongoing war about whether pineapple on pizza is acceptable or not is proof of that. So, why would honey work?
Honey works best with spicy meats and sharp cheeses because it tones down their funkiness and adds another layer to their taste. As such, putting it on a spicy pizza enhances the overall taste of the other ingredients. Don’t believe us? Feel free to try it for yourself.
Feta and tomatoes are a classic combination that many rightfully enjoy. Let’s be creative and see what else pairs well with this salty, creamy cheese. Strawberries are a good candidate.
They’re sweet, fresh, and have a unique flavor and perfume that feta can make more memorable. Besides, this combination’s sweet and salty flavor is the perfect yin and yang. Add some mint and arugula, and you have an awesome spring salad.
French fries and mayo may seem weird to us, but they’re quite common in some countries like Belgium. While Andalouse sauce has a few more ingredients than mayo, it is a mayo-based sauce that tastes great with fries.
Humble mayo also works with fries on its own. It coats them in a velvety layer and acts as a counterpoint to their crispy texture.
This one may seem out of the left field, but it’s quite common in Austria, where delicious schnitzels are often paired with lingonberry jam. You can try sweeter jams as well.
For example, strawberry jam is a great way to enhance the crunchy texture of the chicken fried steak and complement the meat with its bold flavor. If you’re not a fan of sweet jams, try cranberry sauce. It’s also a great way to savor a schnitzel or chicken fried steak.
Ham sandwiches often include cheese, and there aren’t many comfort foods that equal their hearty appeal. So, where does the jelly come in? You can add jelly to these sandwiches to complement the cheese, especially if it’s a sharp cheese like an aged Cheddar.
Don’t go overboard with the jelly, though. You only want a hint of sweetness, not a sweet ham sandwich. There’s nothing tasty about that.
Chilli and cinnamon often make an appearance in the same recipes. However, pairing a doughy, soft cinnamon roll with chili flakes may sound off-putting. That’s the wrong take, though.
Cinnamon already has a hint of spiciness that chili flakes can enhance. When added to a sweet, fragrant cinnamon roll, chili flakes enhance the taste of the cinnamon and complement the sweetness of the roll. They’re better together.
Watermelon is the best thing on a hot summer day, especially right out of the fridge. It’s sweet and fresh and cools you right off. Balsamic vinegar, for its part, usually shows up when you’re enjoying a Caprese salad or another savory dish.
However, they go surprisingly well together because they share sweetness. What’s more, balsamic vinegar imparts a tangy taste to watermelon, enhancing it from a refreshing bite to a decadent dessert and a must-try.
You may love tuna and olives on their own, but have you ever considered trying them together? They’re surprisingly tasty. They share saltiness and brininess, and the texture of the olives enhances the tuna taste.
If you’d like to try this unlikely pairing, consider adding a few sliced olives to your tuna salad or serve a few pitted olives with your tuna cakes. We think you’ll fall in love at first taste.
Next time you have a harkening for apple pie a la mode, don’t head to the freezer to grab your vanilla ice cream. Instead, grab a slice of Swiss cheese and enjoy this tasty pairing.
The cinnamon in the apple pie works great with the slight tang of the Swiss cheese, and both enhance the sweetness of the apple filling. Don’t think that only Swiss cheese works, either. A sharp Cheddar or even a rich blue cheese pairs well with this all-American dessert.
What could avocado and chocolate have in common? Well, they’re both rich and creamy. Moreover, avocado has a mild, earthy taste that combines well with chocolate.
You can melt some chocolate and mix it with avocado for an incredibly creamy dessert that beats any mousse. Use vanilla if you still detect the taste of avocado in your impromptu mousse because this one is all about marrying textures.
If you’ve ever tried fondue, you’re used to dipping things like ham, celery bits, and tomatoes into your bubbly cheese. Why not strawberries? They are sweet and balance the saltiness of your fondue while adding a great flavor and texture.
Besides, using a different, unexpected ingredient in your fondue will likely glam it up. It’s always a great idea to meander off the beaten path and try a new taste.
Fries and milkshake sound like a soggy, miserable disaster, but they work together surprisingly well. The secret is to dip the fries in your milkshake one by one. Otherwise, they do get soggy.
However, much like fries and mayo, this combination also offers a great way to savor crispy fries coated in a layer of creamy goodness — in this case, sweet.
Adding foods to ramen isn’t strange, but some combos have us turning our heads. One shared that their great-grandmother gave them the idea to put popcorn in their ramen.
Another said that they like adding potato chips to the ramen broth after they’ve eaten the noodles. Yet another was a fan of adding Nutella or chocolate syrup to their ramen. Yes, even one ramen fan puts peanut butter in their ramen.
You might be scratching your head or holding your hand before your mouth, but Pilk is a mixture of half Pepsi cola and half milk. You can thank TikTok for this. We don’t blame you for skipping this concoction.
Plain pasta, cottage cheese, and sugar are a baffling fusion slightly beyond the pale. The first two ingredients sound passable, but the sugar launches this into the realm of the truly odd.
Pancakes usually have sweet toppings, but users preferred strange pairings like cottage cheese and kimchi to the usual fare. Making traditionally sweet meals into savory snacks is a popular trend, so maybe these users are ahead of the game.
Making avocados, a staple of Mexican cuisine, into a cold sweet drink fits with the bold food style of Mexico. This combination sounds oddly tempting, if still quite bizarre.
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