Weird Food Combinations that are Strangely Good

Celery and ketchep, I used to eat this as a child and it was the only way I would eat celery! 😆😆

1. mashed potatos spinich and greens beand on a biscute


2. pickles and vanilla frosting



3. chicken potpie with mustard and relish

Cold spaghetti with meat sauce from the night before on white bread slathered with butter.

peanut bitter and jelly burritos

White wonder bread with guldens spicy mustard. Schmooshed to make it a thin thin sandwich.
So weirdly satisfying

And toast with miracle whip and sliced tomatoes.

I am glad I am not alone in my crazy food love! Some of my faves are: Radishes with butter, Toast with grape jelly and cheddar cheese, French fries with tartar sauce and ketchup, Mashed potatoes with cheese sauce and ketchup, Hash browns with hollandaise sauce and ketchup, Dill pickles and cheddar cheese. That's all I can think of at the moment.

Peanut Butter, Mayo, Chili Flakes, Crisp Romaine Lettuce on Toasted Seeded Rye Bread.... On the side I like The Japonese chilis fried in a little olive oil and salted, they are like spicy chips

Chocolate gravy and biscuits with fried bacon
Chocolate gravy recipe 1 cup sugar 1/4 cup
Flour mixed together bout 1 cup milk 2 TBL spoons butter cook over med heat stirring till thickens serve with biscuits add a dash of salt fried bacon goes great

Lied, yer in.

I am afraid I will be ostracized for my answer:
scrambled eggs with ketchup
cottage cheese with sugar
These are the only ways that my poor parents could get dairy into me as a child....and last but not least....
chocolate chip cookies with american cheese atop.

Two things come to mind. First, buttered toast with grape jelly, topped with a sunny-side-up egg. I don't think that's uncommon, but I do think it's unusual. The second is this: peanut butter on a hamburger. No other condiments - just the burger, peanut butter, and the bun. Surprisingly good!

I wrote a list...
1) bacon and maple syrup
2) tortilla chips and cream cheese
3) flat pretzels with a little bit with spicy honey mustard

Smooth peanut butter and dill pickle (sliced length wise) on whole wheat. My father's specialty. Deee- lish, oddly.

Cheddar and chutney on a cracker.
Crispy hot salty French fries dipped in chive sour cream.
White bread, salted butter and strips of green pepper or slices of Vidalia onion or a chunk of crisp iceberg lettuce.

My mother made (and still makes) peanut butter and iceberg lettuce sandwiches on rye or whole wheat bread with a little smear of mayo. I love it.

Fries + Frosty + Ketchup, Peanut Butter + Butter + Toasted Rye Bread, Grilled Cheese with Cheddar and Peanut Butter, Green Apples and Wasabi...I could go on and on!

Marmite and marmalade toast.
Take 2 pieces of buttered toast and spread one with marmite (salty yeast extract that the English love) and spread the other with orange marmalade. Sandwich together.
Salty, sweet, tangy and yeasty!

I always eat my scrambled eggs with ketchup. I also used to enjoy mixing the crushed potato chips from the bottom of the bag with cottage cheese! Salty and delicious :)
Also, I have heard of people enjoying Dorito and peanut butter sandwiches. It sounded disgusting to me at first, but it might be good. Kind of like those peanut butter and cheese cracker sandwiches that you used to bring for snacks in the car on summer vacation!! :)

My grandmother served us torn white bread and milk for lunch.

Brie in dried apricots. Fantastic little appetizer for parties.

I have two slightly weird ones to add to the thread. Mayonnaise on hot tamales. They would actually serve you a small dish of mayonnaise if you asked at Does' Eat Place in Greenville, MS which was famous for their tamales. Second is savory oatmeal, an idea I gleaned from Mark Bittman and my whole family is hooked on. None of us like the normal sweet toppings people customarily served with oatmeal and he suggests grated cheese, salsa,leftover cooked vegetables, etc. We love it with hummus or guacamole or toasted pepitas, And always a big spritz of Braggs Liquid Aminos or Tamari sauce. Don't knock it until you've tried it!

Cooked Egg whites, with a few slices of banana on top, sprinkled with cinnamon! Mmmm!

Sugar Egg! No one would do this today because of all the salmonella fears, but my mom used to beat a raw egg with sugar and serve it as a dip for our morning toast. We loved it. My nonna dumped her cornflakes in her coffee because milk was too boring with cereal. And my grandfather ate cold liver and rice sandwiches. Can't say I do any of these things anymore but I remember them fondly.

Purple grapes and raw broccoli.

A sinful treat when strapped for cash is to cook ramen noodles sans packet and drain noodles reserving a tablespoon of the liquid. Spoon in 1 1/2 tablespoons of chunky or smooth peanut butter. Heat via microwave or stovetop to melt the peanut butter enough to mix with the noodles. Add franks hot sauce to taste. Add orange juice- about a teaspoon and mix. Yum.

tzatziki w/ french fries. I don't think it's weird but it always creeped my hubby out when I was pregnant.

My mother used to eat Oreo cookies smeared with French's yellow mustard. I never got that.

We used to eat chocolate sauce sandwiches when we had leftover homemade chocolate sauce made4 ice cream sundaes. My brother ate ketchup sandwiches on saltines when he was a teenager and worked in theater. Missed my mom's home cooked meals.

Take a nice fresh matzoh tile, spread it with a layer of mayo, then a thin layer of Dijon mustard. Sigh.

peanut butter and honey. enough said.

Cottage cheese and applesauce. Looks like dog chow, but it is delicious, I promise! Also the absolutely genius combination of strawberries dipped in sour cream and rolled in light brown sugar. If you have not tried this, you have not lived :)

This may not count as it is a drink, not food. But when I was little my mom used to make us a treat by mixing orange juice and Sprite. Well, one day we didn't have Sprite so I grabbed a Coke instead. It looks terrible (my mom calls it 'swamp water' because of the color) and my whole family thinks I'm insane, but it tastes really good!

One of my favorite snacks (still) is sliced pickles and cheddar cheese (I have never been pregnant). One of my favorite salads is shredded cabbage with cottage and mayo.

lately I'm into half-sour pickles straight from the icebox daubed with room-temp peanut butter. Disgustingly good!

I love waffles with yogurt on top. I also love peanut butter mixed with syrup and then spread on toast

My mom would make what she called "Eatmore" whenever my dad was away for the night on business. It consisted of spaghetti, ground beef, a can of tomato sauce and and canned corn.

This is going to sound awful BUT it's great and nobody will guess what's in it .. I gave it to a friend who teaches at the Florida Culinary Institute and he couldn't guess what was in it, and loved it... Here goes-- 2 cukes, 1 clove garlic, 1cup sour cream, 1 can campbells green pea soup--unbelievable!!!!Serve chilled, thin if you want

Sounds awful but is GREAT! Peanut butter on hamburger!

How about savory pumpkin and jerky beef?

HalfPint, Mensaque, hardly anything sounds weird here on food52! Answers to this question have given me some good ideas. Coffee with butter? In Tibet they drink tea with yak butter. Eggs with soy sauce? Delicious!

Spinach,bechamel,&parmesan cheese gratin,with olive oil and ketchup on top and a side of cream crackers and a huge glass of coke.

Eggs (any style) topped with a generous shot (or two) of soy sauce. It's how my peeps (the Viet) eat their eggs. My white friends always looked at me kinda weird whenever I did this.

Okay, a peanut butter, avocado and alfalfa sprout sandwich on whole wheat bread. This was from a hippie restaurant called "The Stomach," Portland, Oregon in 1970. I can still picture the place, with its tall, steamed-up windows and plants hanging everywhere, but this is the only food item I remember having there. As kids, my brother and I tried all sorts of variations of peanut butter sandwiches: peanut butter & pickle, peanut butter & cucumber (the best!), peanut butter and tomato, even peanut butter and canned sardines on rye!

Peanut butter sandwich, dill pickles and tomato juice. Can't explain it

I go to a nearby market during lunch with a salad bar and a "hot bar." The combination of caesar salad and something they call "buffalo tofu" is really good. I think its the anchovies in the caesar dressing with the hot chili / toasted sesame oil that does it. And the cool creamy with hot spicy. Mmmmm, getting hungry....

Fig infused vodka with a side dish of stilton (preferably from Harrods, London). I also love dipping my toast with strawberry jam in ketchup for breakfast.

When I was a kid PB& J sandwiched at my school came with a slice of cheese on it, not in it but on top. No one knew why. But today I like sharp cheese and jam sandwiched.
I love tomato pie, thick crust pizza with tomato sauce and a sprinkling of grated cheese served at room temp. I don't think this is weird but most people who have not grown up with it do.

My wife makes a toasted sourdough open face with rubbed garlic, mayo, thin slice of lemon, small slice of pickle and a sardine.

Sadly, I did not try the shitake bacon on top of the cracker spread with the homemade nutella. I highly recommend the shitake bacon though. I like to sprinkle it on just about anything savory I make...grain and greens with beans etc. To add to the weird combos, my mother used to make a toasted sandwich consisting of whole wheat bread spread with peanut butter with a slice of cheddar cheese on top. She then slid it into the toaster oven until the cheese was melted. I cringed and refused to taste it but I suspect it is delicious. My grandmother also used to serve my brother scrambled eggs with applesauce when he was a kid; he loved it.

I just made a batch of shitake "bacon"...roasted 4 oz. sliced shitakes that were tossed with some olive oil s+p at 400F for about 25-35 minutes. I left them on the counter when done and the next thing I knew, my husband was spreading a brown rice black sesame cracker with homemade chocolate nut butter and putting the shitake bacon on top.

Chili with a peanut butter sandwich on white bread- a specialty of school district 205!

a book came out last year, women author subject is What do you eat when your alone, a whole book of all these great concoctions! me, sardines and well, sardines!

Grilled Cheese sandwiches with powdered sugar dusted on top. The sweet and savory combination of sugar and cheese is excellent!

We used to eat bowtie pasta with cottage cheese, sugar and black pepper as children.

My daughters used to love Tillamook cheddar cheese slices with Nutella.

Love peanut butter and dill pickle sandwiches! Also a great combo in a salad is fresh strawberries with thinly sliced red onions with a cream/sugar/vinegar dressing.

Drbabs... Capital idea! Try toasting the spaghetti before dipping..Toasted spaghetti rocks. I cant help sneaking those when I use them for Indian food. The nuttiness would be AWESOME paired with chocolate.. Now I just HAVE to make some today!

OK, this is probably too bizarre, but I just read Mark Bittman's article about the demise of the Twinkie (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/twinkies-the-undead-snack/?hp), and it reminded me of what I used to make as an after school snack. Raw spaghetti dipped in chocolate sauce (probably Bosco or Nestle Quick at the time). Crunchy, starchy, sweet, chocolatey. I remember climbing up on the kitchen counter to find the thinnest spaghetti.

I don't know why but these days I am going crazy behind dill pickles and chocolate by eating them together.
.

Vanilla Ice Cream, date syrup, halva, and..... tahini paste (sesame paste). It doesn't sound weird to me at all, it's delicious. But when I wanted to serve it to a friend, she gave me a disgusted face... until she tasted it. Great question!

I have a recipe I engineered back in the very early 1970's. It's a mixture of hamburger, tunafish, onion, and relish.
1 1/2 pounds ground round
1 (6 ounce) can tuna packed in oil, drained
1 large sweet onion, finely chopped
3 tablespoons sweet pickle relish
seasoning salt and pepper to taste
6 hamburger buns, split

Directions

Preheat an outdoor grill for medium-high heat. When grill is hot, lightly oil the grate.
In a large bowl, mix together the ground beef, tuna, onion, and relish. Season with seasoning salt and pepper to your liking. Form the meat mixture into 6 patties.
Place patties on the hot grill, and cook for 6 to 9 minutes on each side, or until cooked through. Serve on buns with the usual toppings.
sometimes this is hard to hold together, works much better now that they have the package tunafish that you don't have to drain! If using canned tuna fish drain it completely it holds together better! I know it sounds weird but is absolutely delicious!
you can find the recipe under beefuna at all recipes.com

My mom made Spam salad sandwiches. Grind Spam, dill pickles and mix with Hellman's Mayo. Spread it on bread or toast. We liked it better than ham salad! I made it a few weeks ago and my sister was thrilled!

Is it really, wow!! When I think of Hawaii I don't think of spam. Amazing.

I have recently been using pineapple and cucumber together - in japanese nori wraps, or tortilla wraps, or as the base for a salsa. But I also like a bit of ketchup on toast with strawberry jam.

I'm so glad everyone is having such fun with this thread. Maybe this is where we started being creative cooks...by experimenting with food combinations, even unconventional ones.

This thread is conjuring up all kinds of weird taste memories. In college i worked at a small supermarket. Saturday lunch usually consisted of fried pork rinds, cottage cheese with the fruit next to it, and a bottle of strawberry yoo hoo. Yum?

DrBabs, your answer reminded me of something. When I was a kid my mom's go-to potluck dish (for backyard cookouts, picnics, etc) was general tso's chicken from the supermarket deli mixed with a jar of salsa. With toothpicks so people could eat like an appetizer. People went gaga for it and everyone demanded the recipe. It amused her to no end.

DrBabs, your answer reminded me of something. When I was a kid my mom's go-to potluck dish (for backyard cookouts, picnics, etc) was general tso's chicken from the supermarket deli mixed with a jar of salsa. People went gaga for it and everyone demanded the recipe. It amused her to no end.

Growing up we ate fresh blueberries tossed in sour cream and topped with spoonfuls of sugar, preferably brown that had hardened just a little bit. My Dad still eats PB and mayo sometimes with bacon; still makes me shudder. Okay and since we are confessing, us kids would argue over who got to chew on the strings that tied the roast beef once it came out of the oven!

All these responses have jogged my memory. Mom used to love cottage cheese on top of 1/2 cantaloupe with black pepper sprinkled on top. There were no pepper grinders in our house in those days! And it really was/is tasty.

Also she would fry sauerkraut which we put over mashed potatoes. Tried to reproduce it for my Dad after Mom passed, and it was awful. Mom had it work.

My mom always made us ramen noodles (without the soup, just the.noodles) mixed with butter and soy sauce. She called it Chinese noodles. When I had morning sickness that lasted all day, that was the only thing I wanted to eat some days. We also often had pasta mixed with diced tomatoes and sour cream. Lots of salt. And last, when I was younger, I loved ham and butter sandwiches.

My mom used to make us elbow macaroni, mixed with large curd creamed cottage cheese, which melted just slightly from the heat of the pasta. That combo isn't so unusual – basically a version of classic Jewish egg noodles with pot cheese…but the part that made it sublime: we’d sprinkle it with sugar as we ate, a little at a time, so it was still crunchy in every bite. Sweet, a little salty, creamy, chewy, crunchy, cheesy…

I made it for my own kids once when they were young – big build up about how it was my childhood favorite lunch. Their reaction? Decidedly ‘meh.’ Apparently, it's not DNA-linked.

My husband's grandmother made a dip with cottage cheese that was somewhat like a flavor she remembered from her childhood in Czechoslovakia. Cottage cheese with deli mustard and diced onions. It sounds weird, but is delicious with a kick and a bite from the mustard and onion. Many people look at it oddly when I serve it but anyone who tastes it loves it.

My mom's "go to diet lunch" was cottage cheese topped generously with French dressing! I can't figure out how it kept her so slim..

Totally forgot about my butter and sugar sandwiches on wonder bread. GREAT after-school snack.

Hot chocolate and cheddar cheese (for dipping). Seriously.

Sliced reen olives (the generic ones with the pimentos inside) and cream cheese sandwiches. Also next time you get fries, try sprinkling them with sugar - tastes JUST like fried dough from the carnival! And I'm with Bevi on the sugar on snow/SOUR pickle combo. And you can't forget gran's homemade donuts and black coffee to go with your sugar supper.

Back when the word "calories" wasn't even in my vocabulary, peanut butter, banana and mayonnaise (really Miracle Whip then), on toast, was a favorite. I thought I was the only one who ever ate that because none of my friends had ever heard of it. I'm happy to read here I wasn't alone! I also enjoyed grilled peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches.

Here's one from my creative 14 year old budding chef. Next time you have a hot dog try Nutella instead of the usual condiments. Shockingly delicious!

Feeling inadequate (as usual) the state of Arizona recently picked the official state food, the Chimichanga (I don't make this stuff up). A chimichanga is nothing more than a deep fried burrito. Phoenix and Tucson both lay claim to it in the way that the origin of the French dip sandwich is open to dispute in LA. Except that a French dip tastes one hell of a lot better.

Boxed macaroni and cheese made with powdered (organic, maybe) cheese, served with Patak's hot lime or garlic pickle.Very addictive!

i dont think this is weird at all, but my American friends all seem weirded out, so here goes: mozzarella, black beans, chipotle mayonaise, guacamole, and pickles sandwich :)

Peanut butter and pickle sandwiches...

ditto here with whole cans of olives... & baby corn, & hearts of palm, straight out of the can, theres a certain je ne sais quoi element of comfort when doing that!

my father in law had some pretty strange sandwich combinations. But my favorite of them all was his sliced red onion and softened butter sandwich. Yum!

My husband's weird fave is peanut butter, bacon and sliced yellow american cheese, on bread or waffles or pretty much any form of carb. covered in maple syrup and he's a happy camper.

I've been known to eat an entire can of anchovies in one sitting...that's not weird, is it?

My mom and dad have eaten fresh tomato with cottage cheese for years. I used to make fun of it but have to admit I've grown fond of the combination. I've never tried it, but I know a lot of people who like PB and tomato sandwiches.

I grew up in a smaller Midwestern city and when mom dropped my friends and me off at the mall to hang out, we'd inevitably go to Wendy's for their Frostys and then dip their salty French fries in the cold chocolate dessert. My love affair with salty/sweet began there, I'm afraid!

My daughter likes Tillamook cheddar with Nutella.

My fav is to take two pancakes and put one piece of cheddar on each side an then put bacon or my favorite, turkey sausage links in the middle, this is especially great when your running out the door.

How about baloney and American cheese on Sunbeam bread with yellow mustard and sweet pickle relish?

How about baloney and American cheese on Sunbeam bread with yellow mustard and sweet pickle relish?

We used to eat the grilled cheese and yellow mustard sandwiches too. They were great!
My mom also used to take deli ham and heat it in a pan with ketchup. For whatever reason, I really liked it.

And fries with gravy are the bomb!

Black pepper on orange slices. My mom used to set out a plate after dinner most Friday nights and on holidays. Sometimes she'd add white grapefruit slices if she could find them.

Peanut butter sandwiches with mint chutney.
Salt & pepper sprinkled on toasted bagel with Marmalade

I remembered this from a question bugbitten asked. Hostess Cupcakes and Hostess Twinkies from the freezer. Only ate them through high school. But it is tough to admit!

My mom always made us grilled cheese sandwiches with sweet pickle relish and yellow mustard...Delish!!!

My mom always made us grilled cheese sandwiches with sweet pickle relish and yellow mustard...Delish!!!

Wow, this is really fun. And I thought my mom was the only weird one. I wonder what our kids will say about us?

Banana and mayo sandwich.

My mother mixed canned tomato and canned nsplit pea soup and called it Puree Mongol. It was delicious.

I love a jam and hard cheese sandwich. With potato chips of course!

Well there is the proverbial maple sugar on snow with a pickle side served in Vermont - with freshly baked donuts if possible. We had this as kids when we would come a-visiting to see our grandparents.

ice cream with pretzels. Oh, yum.

and in the Acquired Taste Department: Homemade Gefilte fish. Never occurred to me -- until I generously offered it to someone and was declined--that the uninitiated wouldn't cotton to sugared, ground fish combined with matzoh meal stuffed into the fish's skin and boiled with onions, carrots and celery and a fish head. Yum.

I had a memorable hot dog from a street vendor in Seattle once who served his franks with a generous schmear of cream cheese. Amazing! Great question drbabs!

Homemade Cheddar Macaroni with Crisp Bacon and Maple syrup drizzled over the top!

When I was little we used to go to a place that had hot dogs with peanut butter on the kid's menu. I still love it today as an adult!!

Fried egg sandwich with pickles and mustard.

Cream cheese and dill pickles (the kind from the deli) on toast! My mom used to make them for us when we were little and I actually just had one for lunch today! Ooh, or fried bologna and cheese on buttered white bread - yummmy!

Toasted english muffin with cream cheese & bacon. Also, french fries with brown gravy - yum!

My mother made sandwiches and crushed potato chips in it. Bologna, mayo on white bread with crushed potato chips or tomato, mayo and crushed potato chips. Not sure how weird it is but certainly not the norm, but it's really good, to this day I sometimes do it.

Here's mine: my mother used to make a spinach dish that was basically a can of copped spinach, drained and mixed with a can of cream of chicken soup and a splash of lemon juice. I loved that dish, especially after I added a lot of lemon to it. I tried for ages making it with "real" ingredients, and it's definitely better with fresh or even frozen spinach. But there's something about that cream of chicken soup...I could never match, much less improve, the taste and texture profile. So it remains a childhood comfort classic--one that I almost never make, but of which I have fond memories.