Meanings
- uncountablecookingA style of cooking that uses different types of food that are not normally eaten together to create a dish.First known use 1980s
With chaos cooking, almost anything goes, and it's more about ingredients and less about food cultures and traditions.
2023 June 17, Erin Shaw, “What Is Chaos Cooking And What Does It Look Like In Home Kitchens?”, in FoodRepublic3 more examples
All around the garden and across the adjacent apartment, guests spooned, forked, chopsticked, speared and, above all, shoveled food of all sorts into their mouths and others’ at a monthly event called Chaos Cooking.
2010 July 21, Sarah Maslin Nir, “Too Many Cooks? Says Who?”, in New York Times, page A20“I harvested a case (about 18 pounds) of kale and called folks over for a kale fest, asking everyone to bring a recipe and ingredients other than kale – chaos cooking style,” Sevin said.
2011 June 1, Michael Hastings, quoting Natalie Sevin, “Give in to the green: Find your way to kale”, in McClatchy-Tribune Business NewsChaos cooking, before becoming trend-ified, was born from the long line of chefs who looked in their fridges and thought to themselves, "Yeah, I can make something with this."
2023 July 25, Joshua Hunt, “Chaos Cooking Is Taking Over TikTok for All the Right Reasons”, in Food&Wine
Cite this entry
chaos cooking. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/chaos%20cooking
“chaos cooking.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/chaos%20cooking. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “chaos cooking,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/chaos%20cooking.
Source: chaos cooking on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.