Midwestern cooking has heart, warmth, and plenty of comfort. But even in the land of hotdish and hospitality, not every dish deserves a spot at the potluck.
Some are puzzling, others are bland, and a few are just straight-up weird. While many recipes from the region bring back happy memories, these 15 left us scratching our heads—and sometimes reaching for antacids.
Here are the 10 letdowns and 5 flops that might just be better off left in the church cookbook.
1. Jell-O Salad
What starts as a wobbly dessert quickly turns odd with suspended bits of shredded carrot, marshmallows, or canned fruit. The texture can be downright alarming.
Sweet, cold, and strangely chewy, it feels like dessert pretending to be a salad. Often too sweet and never refreshing.
2. Pickle Roll-Ups
Cream cheese spread on deli meat, rolled around a dill pickle. It sounds simple—but ends up tasting like a prank.
Salty, sour, and strangely slippery, it’s a confusing bite with no balance. Best left off the holiday tray.
3. Tater Tot Hotdish
Golden tots promise crisp comfort, but what lurks beneath is often mushy mystery meat and canned soup sludge. The textures never quite work.
It’s either too bland or aggressively salty. The tots lose their crunch, and the whole dish loses its charm.
4. Boiled Dinner
Usually cabbage, potatoes, and meat all cooked in one pot. Sounds hearty, but ends up gray, soft, and low on flavor.
What should be comforting becomes waterlogged and sad. The scent lingers longer than the taste ever should.
5. Cincinnati Chili
Chili over spaghetti with cinnamon and chocolate in the sauce. It’s a regional icon, but the spice blend throws many off.
The sweetness doesn’t mix well with ground beef and cheese. You’re either all in—or completely out.
6. Beer Cheese Soup
Soup made of beer and cheese sounds like a dream—but ends up thick, pasty, and oddly bitter. The flavor is heavy and cloying.
It coats the tongue like a warm blanket of regret. Even bacon bits can’t save it from itself.
7. Sauerkraut Casserole
Fermented cabbage baked into a creamy noodle dish? It’s exactly as confusing as it sounds. Tangy, heavy, and not in a good way.
The sourness dominates, clashing with every other element. It’s one dish that doesn’t know when to quit.
8. Ambrosia Salad
Canned fruit, mini marshmallows, and whipped topping. Sweet on sweet on sweet, with no relief. The texture lands somewhere between dessert and confusion.
It tries to be a fruit salad but ends up tasting like sugar foam. Even nostalgia can’t fix it.
9. Lutefisk
This gelatinous, lye-soaked fish smells like cleaning supplies and tastes even worse. Traditionally Norwegian, but an acquired taste very few acquire.
The texture is slippery and the flavor faint. Just one bite can haunt your memory for years.
10. Sloppy Joe Casserole
Take loose meat, add noodles, pour in canned soup—and bake it all together. The name says it all: sloppy, and not in a good way.
It’s greasy, mushy, and tastes like it’s trying too hard. A sandwich was never meant to be a bake.
11. Tuna Noodle Casserole
Soft noodles meet canned tuna and cream of mushroom soup, topped with crushed chips or crackers. Sounds cozy—until the aroma kicks in.
It’s fishy, starchy, and strangely beige. One scoop is usually enough to call it a night.
12. Marshmallow Fruit Salad
Like ambrosia, but with even more marshmallows. Every bite is sticky and cloying, like candy melted into produce.
There’s no freshness—just sugar overload. The fruit deserves better.
13. Liver Sausage Sandwiches
Spreadable meat paste on white bread is a hard sell. The iron-rich flavor is strong, the texture oddly smooth.
No amount of mustard can save this one. It’s nostalgia for some, but a quick no for many.
14. Spam Bake
Spam slices layered with pineapple and glaze, baked until rubbery and caramelized. The sweetness doesn’t hide the salt or the squeak.
It smells like a mistake and tastes like canned regret. Some things were meant for wartime, not weeknight dinner.
15. Kool-Aid Pickles
Pickles soaked in bright red Kool-Aid. The result? A sweet, sour, neon-colored flavor bomb that baffles every part of the brain.
Crunchy and candy-like, but not in a good way. Novelty doesn’t equal delicious.