April Fools with Food

April Fools is a fun and whimsical holiday that encourages you to pull pranks on your friends and family. As you hopefully learned in college, pranks should be funny, but shouldn't cross the line and become destructive. It's a delicate balance sometimes, but it should be clear what's a funny idea and what's criminal.

With that in mind, April Fools Day is this Friday, April 1st. Seriously! It is! Why won't anyone believe us?

In any case, this year we're pulling some culinary pranks with cool dishes that are sure to trick or startle our dinner guests. If we're cooking, why not have some fun with it? Some of these dishes trick the eye and some have fitting names, but all are tasty and fun for Fools everywhere.

To help you assemble the best recipes for April Fools Day, we fired up the FoodPair search engine and found a handful of hilarious recipes from across the Web.

Black and Orange Pasta
The best tasting freak-out we've found uses black pasta and orange peppers.
Ingredients: garlic, olive oil, thyme, red pepper flakes, butternut squash, spaghetti, Kalamata olive, orange bell pepper


Mock Caesar Salad
This crafty Caesar Salad has no oil and no anchovies. Really?
Ingredients: tomato, garlic, Parmesan cheese, lemon juice, romaine lettuce, soy sauce, black pepper, Belgian endive

Shrimp Spring Rolls
These savory rolls look the same as the next recipe for dessert rolls!
Ingredients: shrimp, chicken, scallion, ginger, bell pepper, soy sauce, Napa cabbage, bean sprouts, vegetable oil, cornstarch, sweet chili sauce, shiitakes, rice wine vinegar, rice wrappers

Banana and Mango Spring Rolls
Drive 'em wild by pairing dessert rolls with the savory rolls above.
Ingredients: mango, egg, mint, banana, ginger, brown sugar, vegetable oil, chocolate, coconut milk, spring roll wrappers

Mango Blueberry "Fool"
Now you can serve a fool to all the people you fooled.
Ingredients in this recipe: mango, sugar, blueberry, heavy cream, lime juice, lime zest

Berry Mascarpone Fool
This one's straight-up delicious, so just say it's made with meat & bugs as you take a big bite!
Ingredients: mint, cream, lemon juice, sugar, blueberry, mascarpone, mixed berries


Let's get cooking!

Any other favorite ingredients or dishes you'd like us to highlight? Post them in the comments section or on our Facebook page! And while you're at it, "Like" us on Facebook to get helpful updates in your news feed.