25 Party Foods That People Tend to Avoid

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You never can tell what’s going to catch someone’s eye at a party, and sometimes, adventurous is the way to go. Bugs, for instance, might seem like a bridge too far. However, I’ve enjoyed crickets and grasshoppers, both of which are chewy, crunchy, umami sources of much-needed protein at a party. Cockroaches, on the other hand? I lived in way too close proximity to them in Belize and have no desire to deepen our relationship. 

All of which is to say, many “worst” foods really come down to personal taste and preference … and possibly trauma, as when my brother gave me “apple juice” when we were small. It was not juice. However, there are definite dos and don’ts when it comes to bringing a dish to a soiree. Among the dos: do note allergens, be aware of the host’s preferences, and keep food safety rules in mind. Don’t be culturally insensitive, use animal products in dishes that don’t normally have them (unless you note it), or fail to mention if you spike something (even if it’s only a bit for flavor).

Other than that, the best policy is simply to pick foods that you think the most people will like — the least amount of food that people will be offended by — and pretend pasta salad does not exist. Accordingly, here are 25 of the worst party foods to avoid today.

Tartare of any kind, from beef to salmon, does present a food safety risk, which is the main reason people are going to steer clear of even the most thoughtfully prepared dish at a busy party or on a warm summer’s day. The risk is simply too high. Is steak tartare, for instance, safe? 

Technically, yes, as long as it’s prepared by someone who knows what they’re doing and you consume it within 24 hours — but should dilettantes be serving it? I have a far greater list of caveats here, so why not just ignore them all and say: dispense with the microorganism fest and give this a pass.

The first rule of parties is don’t bring anything super-polarizing, and foie gras is nothing if not super-polarizing. Any food that’s outlawed in multiple countries for animal cruelty reasons is not a good icebreaker. 

More to the point, while there are many unethical types of meat production, that doesn’t erase how problematic foie gras can be considered. Go ahead and plan a dinner party or bring a dish that doesn’t engender political or ethical outcry — that’s the party we all want to be at.

Unless this is a four-person party and you come armed with four bowls, four spoons, four napkins, a Swiffer, and a ladle, please don’t bring soup. If you’re the host, please don’t serve soup.

It fills people up quickly due to the fact that, when blended with food, the water content stays in the stomach longer than it otherwise would. That’s valuable space we could be using on wine or dessert. Plus, it’s messy, it spills easily, and you have to keep it at a specific temperature (above 140 F) to prevent the growth of harmful pathogens.

People boast a wide range of heat tolerances, from those who can’t handle a Hot Cheetos to those who are happy to chomp into a ghost chili just to prove they can (And yes, you can eat ghost chili on its own, but you’ve got to train for that kind of heavy lifting).

Really hot foods aren’t just a party trick, though: they can actually harm people. From abdominal and chest pain to violent vomiting and burning diarrhea, the risks are severe. Do not serve or bring super-spicy foods unless you post a warning label.

Personally? I love beets. I think they’re great, but I’m also realistic enough to know that they have several downsides. They’re messy. They’re smelly. They stain like all get-out, even the light-colored ones. Frankly, even the most delicious beet-and-orange salad still tastes like someone dressed up some dirt and put it on a fancy plate. 

Again, I’m okay with that, but don’t expect anyone else to be (And if I’m wearing nice clothes, I still won’t touch ’em). As for beet eggs … no. Just no. Why this is a thing, I can’t imagine. I like beets, and I like eggs. That being said, I wish someone would turn up one of those obsolete state laws from the 1700s (you know, the kind that requires you to bathe once a full moon or whatever) that says these aren’t allowed.

Jell-O salads can be tasty, but they can also be pretty odd. The flavors of fruit and gelatin don’t always blend well, especially when people get extra creative (Looking at you, maraschino cherries suspended in plain lime Jell-O from that one restaurant where we went when I was a kid). 

Love Jell-O and can’t live without it? As it turns out, you can add it to cake mix for a moist, dense, colorful, spongy cake. Try Lemon Jell-O in your lemon bars or Orange Jell-O in your clementine cake.

As discussed already, anything smelly is to be avoided. While anchovies and sardines can be delicious, they can also be quite off-putting to those who don’t like seafood. This is doubly true for vegetarians or vegans, who can become physically sick from the strong scent of animal products. 

If you’re eager to start experimenting with canned fish, try a tinned fish snack board in the company of fellow foodies who you’re sure enjoy les fruits de mer — they’re far likelier to be appreciative of your effort.

Foraging is super fun. As someone with an avid mushroom forager for a mother-in-law, I’ve been mushroom hunting many times and always enjoyed it. However, I absolutely do not trust random revelers at a party, so I wouldn’t eat their foraged wood goodies nor try to serve them mine. 

If you want to get creative with shrooms, go ahead and buy a bag of highly reviewed Vigorous Mountains Dried Porcini Mushrooms to put in your canapés or mini quiches. People will feel much more comfortable with this choice.

Many people like Brussels sprouts, but they remain a problematic party food for several reasons. First, they smell. Second, they just seem to look kind of sad and wilted no matter how one cooks them, so they’re unlikely to attract attention at a party. 

Lastly, veggies are a common bearer of foodborne illness, so beware of the danger zone — keep those bad boys above 140 F if you want them hot — and make proper accommodations for your non-refrigerated veg dishes. Also, if you simply must serve Brussels sprouts, can you please add some cheese or bacon? It would be a huge favor to me.

I’m just saying, black licorice has no place at a party, and I actually like it a lot, but it tastes nasty with literally every other flavor in the world. This is one of the reasons I can’t stop hating on the Great British Baking Show choices of Christiaan De Vries, an otherwise genius who simply couldn’t stop putting licorice in things. It was a genuine problem, for him if for no one else, because the judges were not into it. 

So, is black licorice good? Yes, sure, I think so. Do most people hate it? Yep, but that’s not even the issue — it simply doesn’t go with anything. It is, rather, a personal choice. One that should take place at home, alone, in front of Netflix, as intended.

Not only are hard candies more closely associated with a Bing Crosby Christmas than with modern parties, but they’re not very fun at a party. They take a long time to get down, they make talking difficult, and they’re a top choking hazard to boot. 

There’s one possible exception that comes to my mind: hard candies are a tradition in the South, so if you’re celebrating Southern hospitality with a potluck (either geographically or in spirit), then please feel free to break this rule. Everyone else, take your peppermints and go.

No one comes to a party to eat a wilted salad with weird industrial dressing that they could have bought themselves at their nearest grocery store. If you’re going to go to the trouble of bringing anything at all, don’t make it limp lettuce with soggy toppings and mushy nuts — make it yourself. 

There are many easy salads out there, like grilled romaine and corn salad with herby mustard dressing, for instance. If you really can’t find it in yourself to make a salad from scratch (relatable), you can at least dress up your bagged salad by making a homemade dressing, topping it with grilled chicken, or adding some honey-roasted nuts.

Just because it’s a bad idea to serve too many appetizers at a party doesn’t mean that you should roll out the main dishes during cocktail hour, especially not as a guest bringing a contribution. Here is an axe I’ve wanted to grind for about 13 years now: why would anyone bring a giant Tofurkey loaf, slathered with cranberry jelly, to a party? 

I don’t care that if it’s near Thanksgiving — this is not okay. It smells terrible, it tastes worse, and you’re not allowed to say anything about how bad it is. Vegetarians: there are so many delicious, animal-free things in the world. Make one of those.

It’s not that fermented foods aren’t delicious, because they are (My mother will never weary of telling people how much I loved sauerkraut as a baby). However, they’re strong-smelling, they don’t mix nicely with many other foods, and by nature, they’re often liquid-y. 

Whether we’re talking about wedding foods or just a graduation party, it’s probably best to steer clear. The exception is some good kimchi, which is delicious on a wide variety of dishes and doesn’t smell too strong or sour. If you take the time to make it yourself, more power to you. If you don’t want to, there are plenty of good options online, such as Wildbrine Korean Kimchi.

One thing that always makes me shudder is seeing hand after hand reach into a bowl of snack mix. This is especially true when those hands belong to children. I’m not judging children as a whole — I just have them, and I know where those hands have been. 

As such, you should never bring a snack mix to a party without utensils, because you can’t rely on the host to have any to spare. I’m not kidding when I say one of the best ways to upgrade a mix of any kind, from Super Bowl party snack mixes to muddy buddies, is to put a large spoon in the bowl with it.

If you’ve never seen Kevin drop an industrial batch of his famous chili on the carpet of “The Office,” I have two things to say to you. First, you need to watch it on YouTube. Second, this is why we don’t bring chili to parties. It’s frankly just cruel to the host, who didn’t decide to serve it and now has to watch little bowls of it wander from place to place, hovering over their rugs. That’s assuming anyone will eat it, of course. 

Chili is a notoriously heavy, spicy, and garlicky food. It is not made for pairing with drinking or kissing, which are two of the activities I assume still happen at parties (I haven’t been to a big one in a while). Just say no to chili.

Oh, you thought I was joking about pasta salad? Well, the joke’s on you, because I wasn’t. It’s the absolute forking worst, and people really need to stop bringing it. Just because it’s easy to make and a good excuse to eat tiny mozzarella balls is not an excuse overall. 

Pasta salad is boring, it gets weird at room temperature, and everyone gets nervous about mayonnaise that’s been out of the fridge for like 2.5 seconds. Interestingly, mayo usually isn’t a source of foodborne illness due to its acid content, but you know what is? The cheese and veggies people use to try and pretend pasta salad doesn’t taste bland. Stick to it at home if you must.

Communal bean dip is one of the least appetizing things on the planet. No matter how famous Kathy’s seven layers are in this part of town, watching others dip chip after chip into it is just not appealing. Chances are, people will avoid bean dip that requires chips to be the only vehicle unless they are very brave or very drunk.

In most cases, 100% Compostable Heavy Duty, Disposable 7 Inch Dessert Plates are the perfect solution, both for your bean dip and for the planet. That way, people can serve up some dip on their plates without having to share more pathogens than necessary.

According to Dante Alighieri, there are nine circles of hell. According to me, there are actually 10 circles, and in the outermost one, you spend eternity picking invisible little bits of corn on the cob out of your teeth. It’s not particularly painful, but it is annoying that you spend the whole time screaming, which makes it even harder to get at the bits. 

No one wants to deal with this when they are trying to look cute, raise a glass, or boogie on down to the dance floor. If you just truly love your corn, do us all a favor and cut it off the cob.

I’m sorry, but I’ve had enough cheese balls for a lifetime. I cannot count the number of times someone has whipped up a soft cheese, formed it into a ball, rolled it in nuts, and plopped it on a plate, then expected everyone else to be happy about this. I have … so many questions. 

First, how did you get it ball-shaped without getting your hands all-up-in that cheese? Second, why do you assume that I don’t want some nuts? I do want some nuts, and they’re often gone by the time I get there. Third, cheese comes in wheels, logs, and wedges for a reason. Stop it with the balls and marinate some cheese cubes instead.

Speaking of balls that have no place at a party, skip the Rocky Mountain oysters. It’s true that cultural tastes differ, and it’s rude to call out someone’s traditional foods as gross. I am not doing that, mostly because ’49ers don’t have traditional foods. 

What I’m doing is saying if you want to be adventurous with your dining, you should do it at home — or, at least at a restaurant that knows what they’re doing, because … I have concerns.

On more than one occasion, oatmeal cookies have almost ended my marriage, so this one might be more of a personal vendetta than anything else. Having dispensed with the disclaimer, oatmeal cookies are just plain bad. 

I’ll eat them, sure, but they are not party food. I repeat, and I hope my husband is listening: They are not party food. They’re dense, boring, fit for an afternoon pick-me-up, but not for a party. Stop trying to make me excited about them.

You can love something and still believe it belongs far away from a party, and ceviche is one of those things. Raw fish, lightly cooked in an acid bath of citrus, is truly delicious, and I seek it out whenever I can (Same goes for ika mata, one of the best foods I had in New Zealand). 

The thing is, all that raw fish can lead to problems if improperly handled. Seriously, if serving homemade ceviche wasn’t dangerous, we wouldn’t need articles entitled, “How to Serve Ceviche Safely” — and yet, those articles exist.

Parties are all about the conversation, so anything that can glue your mouth shut is to be avoided. Taffy and peanut brittle, both of which seem tailor-made for mouth-gluing, fall into this category. If you want a sweet and nutty treat, you have plenty of options that don’t require oral surgery. 

Try something like Squirrel Brand Sweet Brown Butter Cashews or Valley Fudge Caramel Vanilla Swirl, both of which have a nutty, sugary vibe that will go down great with other party foods — you know, the ones people actually do want to touch.

Unless you have a very good reason to do so, please avoid anything from the ’60s or ’70s. By “very good reason,” I mean that you have nothing else in your cupboard than a can of pineapple, another of maraschino cherries, and a third of Spam. 

Are these foods unpleasant on their own? No, but by George, the Space Age folk certainly did some weird things with them. Stick to cookbooks from the modern era or, if you want to be cute about it, from the 19^th century. As for vintage appetizers, be wary.