Weird Food Combos That Are Actually Good

We all have a favorite weird food combo that makes our taste buds tingle, even if others don’t understand the appeal. It may be a strange blend you were introduced to during childhood or something you picked up following social media. No matter how they came about, weird food combos that turn out to be delicious are one of the purest joys of playing with your food!

What weird food combos are out there that may sound questionable but actually turn out to be great pairings? We did some detective work to find our favorite takes on weird food combos and discovered some unexpected mixtures that are surprisingly satisfying. From balsamic vinegar and ice cream to spaghetti and salsa, prepare to have your culinary horizons expanded with a slew of creatively delicious blends.

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• 41 Weird Food Combinations That Are Good
• Exploring Strange Food Combinations

41 Weird Food Combinations That Are Good

1. Peanut Butter and Pickles

One of the easiest weird food combos to create in your own kitchen, peanut butter and pickles is a winsome flavor agreement between the earthy qualities of peanuts and the tart tones of dill and vinegar. The crunch from the pickle, and even peanuts if you use chunky peanut butter, add exciting texture to the conversation.

2. Jell-O and Pretzels

If you’ve seen weird food combos on picnic tables at family gatherings, you may have discovered that some people think Jell-O and pretzels should be used in the same dish. Sometimes called Jell-O salad, the pretzels form a salty, crunchy base similar to a graham cracker crust, topped with layers of creamy fluff and jiggly gelatin.

3. Pizza and Ranch

Some weird food combos grab you by the taste buds and won’t let go, like the tangy zap you get from dipping pizza in ranch dressing. With so many savory possibilities for your pie, there’s no sauce or topping that ranch can’t get along with.

4. Vanilla Ice Cream and Olive Oil

If you keep up with popular food trends, you’ve probably seen this on TikTok. But before you skip past this weird food combo, consider the qualities of olive oil: nutty, fruity and rich, with a largely neutral flavor that gives the creamy vanilla ice cream a luxurious jolt. All it takes is a drizzle to give your favorite discount scoop an elegant upgrade.

5. Hot Chocolate and Cheese

The weird food combo of hot chocolate and cheese is more of a pairing; try enjoying a cup of cocoa with a few slices of your favorite cheese and see how the taste sensation hits you. A mellow, spreadable wheel of brie or a bit of Edam as a side snack for your warm mug of liquid bliss is a snack born out of luxury.

6. Peanut Butter and Jalapeños

Before you judge a weird food combo like peanut butter and jalapeños, consider that regional Asian cuisines have been partnering with these two ingredients for generations. Try spreading a little PB on a tortilla and add a few jalapeño rounds for a wrap with a savory snap.

7. Mango and Chili Powder

When your favorite heat meets your chosen sweet, like chili powder and mango, things really start to get interesting. Sugar is often used to mellow the heat of more fiery ingredients, and the juicy mango flesh provides enough liquid to keep the chili powder from clumping on your tongue. Strangely, this weird food combo makes a lot of sense!

8. Bananas and Quesadilla

Adding a sliced banana to your quesadilla may sound like a weird food combo you can’t get into. But hear us out: the creamy, sweet banana mixed with salty, umami cheese turns out to be a treat for anyone daring enough to try it.

9. Bacon and Chocolate

Imagine smoky, earthy notes peeking through the luxe taste and texture of chocolate, and you’ve discovered the unexpectedly delicious weird food combo of bacon and chocolate. Break up bacon strips and top your chocolate cookies or cupcakes with a sprinkle or two — bonus points for using maple bacon!

10. Hot Sauce and Waffles

Skip the syrup and try soaking your waffles in hot sauce for a food friendship that turns a traditionally sweet bake on its crispy ear. The buttery goodness of the waffle plays off of the spirited kick of hot in an unexpectedly tasty way.

11. Bananas and Mayonnaise

You've probably eaten bananas with yogurt, but what about with mayonnaise? This weird food combo might sound like a bridge too far, but it's a Southern favorite. Banana and mayonnaise yogurt sandwiches on white bread blend the spread’s vinegary zing with the fruit’s creamy sweetness to create a comfort food classic.

12. Oatmeal and Orange Juice

The breakfast table is a perfect place for weird food combos like oatmeal and orange juice, a sweet mash-up that adds some zing to your early morning eating! Instead of milk or water, soak uncooked whole oats in OJ and let the acid from the juice soften them up. Sprinkle a little coconut on top for a nutty and tropical change-up on your usual morning oats.

13. Hummus and Chocolate

Plant-based dining offers a slew of strange food combos that sound odd but actually make a lot of sense, like hummus and chocolate. By leaving out the garlic and paprika and adding cocoa powder and maple syrup instead, you can create a fudgy hummus that’s perfect for dipping graham crackers and vanilla wafers.

14. Roasted Almonds and Lemon Frosting

Maybe you’ve never considered almonds and lemon among your weird food combos, but maybe you should — the flavors are pretty complementary. Dragging each almond through canned lemon buttercream to get just the right amount of sweetness and earthiness creates bite-sized snacks that taste like you’re eating cheesecake... all without the work of actually making it.

15. Watermelon and Feta

The mixture of watermelon and feta is one of those weird food combos that turns into a gourmet dish your cooking club friends can’t stop talking about. Once you taste how the bright watermelon makes sweet harmony with the creamy, salty feta, you’ll be right there with them.

16. American Cheese and Apple Pie

Who would have thought that a slice of American cheese over hot apple pie would be a taste sensation? This eclectic mash-up gives the crust and apples an added dose of dairy-based creaminess, and the cheese serves as a savory alternative to ice cream or whipped topping.

17. Balsamic Vinegar and Ice Cream

The sweetness of balsamic vinegar makes it an unexpected upscale topping for ice cream, particularly vanilla and butter pecan flavors. This is a weird food combo you might even find on menus at upscale restaurants, where experimentation almost always leads to incredible discoveries.

18. Pickle Juice and Popcorn

Think of popcorn as a blank canvas that can accommodate just about any culinary color you can think of, like pickle juice! The tingly tang brightens up the mellow corn flavor and adds salt without a shaker. It’s an oddly delicious mélange, the perfect custom treat for movie night.

19. Spaghetti and Salsa

If you’ve never thought of topping your spaghetti with salsa, then take it from us: this is one weird food combo you should try. The ingredients in salsa are nearly identical to those used to make pasta sauce, but with a jalapeño kick that adds a delicious dimension to an otherwise ordinary dish.

20. Hot Chocolate and Turmeric

The earthy, mustard-like essence of turmeric powder added to hot chocolate sounds like one of the most unlikely recipes ever. And yet, the roasted smoothness from both ingredients merges under the sweetness of maple syrup or sugar to create a deliciously effective partnership.

21. Grapes and Flavored Gelatin Powder

The internet is full of creative, fad-worthy combinations, like dipping grapes in flavored gelatin powder. The merging of sweetness and tanginess gives the finished product a taste that’s similar to Jolly Rancher candies.

22. Coffee and Olive Oil

Before you strike coffee and olive oil from your list of strange food blends to try, think about this: Coffee creamer is essentially oil with flavorings. Switching it out for olive oil will give your coffee a fuller body while tempering the acidity, a mindful alternative to the highly processed creamers you may be used to.

23. Spaghetti and Ketchup

Spaghetti and ketchup shouldn’t even exist in the same universe, or should it? This strange alliance replicates the flavors of tomato sauce over pasta, with a bit more sweetness and tang than real spaghetti sauce, and it’s made from the same core vegetable: tomatoes. Try it if you’re ever out of jarred sauce and don’t feel like making homemade.

24. Mayonnaise and Peanut Butter

Marrying mayonnaise and peanut butter in sandwich form is a match made in weird food combo heaven. The dance of tangy mayo and earthy peanut butter gives your taste buds two distinctly different tastes that somehow make culinary magic.

25. Peanuts in Cola

Southern farmers are said to have brought salted peanuts in cola to the world of wacky food combos. The blend of salty and caramel-like cola sweetness is a wild winner, providing a snack and beverage in one.

26. Ham and Cheese Sandwiches With Grape Jelly

If you’ve never heard of the Monte Cristo sandwich, you’re in for a weird food combo one-of-a-kind. Take a ham and cheese sandwich, slather the bread with grape jelly, dip it in egg batter and toast the whole thing until the cheese melts and the batter crusts up. It’s a Parisian classic that defies logic but works like gangbusters.

27. Avocado and Chocolate

Who would ever think making avocado and chocolate sing together would create such harmonic delight? To try this weird food combo, use avocado’s neutral taste and creamy consistency as a base for chocolatey mousse and discover an indulgent dessert with a healthy twist.

28. Apples and Mustard

Yes, we said mustard, although you'd be forgiven for thinking the "M" should be a "C"! Sweet heat seems to rule the world of weird food combos, like matching apples and mustard for a tongue-twisting wallop of enticing pungency. Experiment with honey mustard to keep the sweetness front and center or try a saucy brown mustard to turn up the fire.

29. Peanut Butter and Hamburger

Forgo the ketchup on your next hamburger and use peanut butter instead to catch a weird food combo vibe you’re bound to love. The umami notes of the beef let the natural sweetness of the peanut butter come out to play without overwhelming your palate. The textures are simply luxurious.

30. Hot Fudge and Soft Pretzels

Going with hot fudge as a dipping sauce for soft pretzels turns the usually savory treat into a baked sweet. With large-grain salt on hand to balance the sweetness, this curious combination is easy to get hooked on.

31. Serrano Ham and Cantaloupe

You may find weird food combos like serrano ham slices wrapped around chunks of cantaloupe on tables at high-end parties or among spreads for special occasions. This strange fellowship lets the salt from the ham commune with the earthy sweetness of the cantaloupe for a quirky bite that feels more luxurious than it should.

32. French Fries and Powdered Sugar

Think of shaking powdered sugar over your French fries as a carnival food creation you can have any time. The crispy fried goodness of the potatoes dusted with light-as-air sugar conjures up a funnel cake-like flavor profile, making this a fun addition to your menu of atypical culinary collabs.

33. Chocolate and Potato Chips

Creamy and sweet meets crunchy and salty with chocolate and potato chips, one of the easier weird food combos to wrap your head around. The crisp texture of the chip is a stand-in for a cookie, whether you drizzle the top with hot fudge or coat it with a dark chocolate shell. 

34. Fried Cheese Curds and Caramel Sauce

This weird food combo sounds like carnival food, but it’s really a festival of wild flavors that work together. The pastry-like crust and salty melted cheese center are ideal for dipping in, or coating with, sticky-sweet caramel sauce.

35. Black Pepper and Strawberries

Another take on a sweet and spicy smash-up, adding black pepper to strawberries gives your tongue a world of work to do! Weird food combos like this present a blend of flavors you’d never have thought to try if someone hadn’t suggested it to you. You’re welcome!

36. Mustard and Scrambled Eggs

Scrambled eggs have a very restrictive list of condiment add-ins, with familiar items like salsa and ketchup probably at the top of the list for many. But adding mustard to scrambled eggs is one of those weird food combos that just works; the mild flavor of the eggs gives mustard’s bright zip a safe place to land.

37. Milkshakes and French Fries

Milk and cookies have nothing on milkshakes and French fries when it comes to weird food combos. The dense body and creamy sweetness of the shake in just about any flavor provide a perfect dipping sauce for the warm, salty crackle of a fresh fry.

38. Cherries and Jalapeños

Sweet and hot blends like cherries and jalapeños make for exciting weird food combos that light up your senses. This combo is about more than just flavor — the juiciness of the cherries and the crunch of the peppers will feel like a textural tap dance for your teeth.

39. Cayenne Pepper and Cocoa

Cayenne pepper and cocoa may sound like a weird food combo dreamed up as part of an outrageous dare, but this formulation has been used in traditional Mexican hot chocolate for generations. The roasted charm of cocoa gets a touch of heat from the cayenne, while a little sugar and cream round off the fiery edges — perfection!

40. Maple Syrup With Mac and Cheese

If you need weird food combos to make sure your kids are paying attention at dinner time, try a squeeze of maple syrup on their mac and cheese. The syrup gives the creamy cheese sauce a dash of sweetness that doesn’t feel overly sugary, thanks to the earthiness of the maple flavor.

41. Cinnamon and Chili

Adding a teaspoon of cinnamon powder to existing chili seasonings gives the familiar flavors a woodsy warmth that stands out. As weird food combos go, it’s not the wildest of the bunch — it’s more of an unexpected blend that makes sense as soon as you taste it.

Exploring Strange Food Combinations

The truth behind weird food combos that are good to taste comes down to simple food science. Your taste buds coordinate to experience multiple flavors simultaneously, even when you don’t realize it’s happening. Tasting pickles and peanut butter together, for example, results in an experience that's delightfully salty, tangy and dashed with umami all that once. Of course, we all have different tastes and preferences, and despite the fact that they're on this list, some of the weird food combos mentioned above may simply not be for you! The key to discovering your own favorite combos is not being afraid to experiment. Dip your fries in your favorite sweet treat and try spices together that you've never blended before. Sometimes it's the least likely pairings that make your taste buds sing, so don't be afraid be bold!

The most fun you can have tasting strange food combinations is getting your friends to taste them, too. Try throwing a weird food combo dinner party, and invite your fellow foodies to bring their favorite strange blend as a shared dish. You'll discover all sorts of weird food combos that are good — pairings you may have never thought of — while getting the chance to introduce your friends to your own special selections.

For even more ways to explore your favorite foods, check out other experiences happening on Cozymeal.