Gabby Romero
·4-min read
Delish editors spend a lot of time scrolling through TikTok for the newest food trends. Sometimes we discover a recipe and add it to our rotation until the end of time (hello, baked feta pasta). Other food tricks are fun, but don’t have the longevity to become a household name.
And in the last category are recipes so ridiculous or vile that they probably should have never been invented in the first place. A recent video posted to TikTok clearly belongs in this category.
TikTok user @eczemmma and her grandma Sheila walk us through a step-by-step recipe for her infamous Jell-O salad. And every ingredient is worse than the last. Lime Jell-O. Mayo. Cottage Cheese. Pineapple. Olives. It’s not often that a recipe video leaves me feeling completely repulsed.
I wasn’t the only one grossed out by Sheila’s recipe. In the comments, one user wrote, “Y’all should see the face I’m making.” Another added, “My stomach just turned sour.”
Several other users noted that this resembles many of the retro Jell-O salads that dominated mid-century cookbooks. Grandma Sheila clarified in another video that she first discovered the recipe at a tea party in 1956, and she's changed and adapted it over several decades.
The video racked up over five million views, which prompted @eczemmma to upload another video of her trying her grandma's salad.
She described it as “not as bad as it looks.” In the original video, Grandma Sheila promises that we’re “going to love it.” But is this true? I decided to try her recipe to find out.
First I started by making the base of the salad. I made one batch of lime Jell-O, but followed Sheila's instructions rather than the ones listed on the package. I added two tablespoons of mayonnaise and one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar before adding enough water to reach one and a half cups.
Once it began to “gel a little bit,” as grandma Sheila says, it was time to add the strange mix-ins. I first scooped in an entire tub of cottage cheese and stirred it thoroughly. This addition added a strange creamy opacity to the Jell-O and resembled slime from the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards.
To that chunky, slimy mixture I stirred in grated carrot, crushed pineapple, chopped celery (@eczemmma clarifies that celery is the right ingredient, not cucumber), and sliced black olives. The carrot and pineapple add a contrasting warm hue to the green salad base. You’d think that this would make it look more appetizing, but it just looked closer to baby vomit than anything else. Lastly, I poured the salad into a greased bundt pan and popped it into the fridge to set.
Cut to a few hours later, and it was time to unveil the finished dish. I needed to carefully loosen the sides with a butter knife before the mixture unceremoniously flopped and squelched out of the pan. And, just like in the TikTok, it looked just as heinous as you would expect.
So naturally, I decided to force all of my coworkers to try it. A few reactions were flat out negative. “The texture is repulsive,” says our assistant social media editor Izabela Campos. “I’m not really okay,” senior culinary producer Natalie Lobel said after taking a bite. I was also staunchly against the recipe—but I think my in-depth knowledge of how the sausage gets made effectively ruined any chances of me enjoying it.
What was most shocking, however, was that the overall reception was not as critical as I thought it would be. In fact, several people went back in for more (including one Delish staffer, who will remain anonymous, who had fifths!).
“It’s actually pretty good,” says features director Ryan Grim. “It’s like coleslaw from the future…or the distant past?” The primary flaw, he claims, is that the heterogenous texture of the salad makes each bite inconsistent.
But the most common response overall was: “It’s not that bad.”
Would we seek it out at a family potluck? No. Would we eat a huge bowl of it? Certainly not. But if you’re an adventurous eater and happen to have this strange melange of ingredients laying around your kitchen, it’s worth making Grandma Sheila’s recipe at least once.
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