I Tried Jennifer Lawrence's Spaghetti Chili Pizza Sandwich & Now I Want To Go Vegan
You've been there before: You're scrolling through your Instagram feed when you see your favorite celeb post about their favorite new product — a face serum, vitamins that will make your skin brighter, or a specialty food service. You can't help but want to be like the stars, but are the products worth it? In Elite Daily's new series, I Tried, we put it all to the test. We're trying those products as well as celebrities' health and wellness tips, recipes, and life hacks. We'll do the leg work and tell you what living like your fave star is really like.
Let's make one thing clear: There are fews foods on this planet I don't like. I'm willing to try anything and everything at least once, and so far the only thing I don't like is sushi. People are usually blown away when I say that, since sushi is so popular, but what can I say? Seaweed is trash — trash, I tell you! — and you won't find me eating it. (Yes, I know that not all sushi comes with seaweed. I still don't like it.) My favorite food by far is spaghetti. Given that and my willingness to try any food presented to me, you can bet my interest was piqued when I heard about Jennifer Lawrence's spaghetti chili pizza sandwich. Pizza, spaghetti, chili, and sandwich just so happen to be four of my favorite words ever, so put them together and you've got one girl who's 100 percent down to try this meal, no matter the cost to her stomach the next day.
J. Law revealed her "greatest food invention" in a 2016 interview with Glamour. In the interview, she detailed the meal, saying, “It’s called a chili pizza sandwich. You have a piece of pizza, you put chili in it with noodles, like southern chili with noodles, and then another piece of pizza, and then you eat it like a sandwich.” Sounds disgusting, right? But maybe also kind of... genius and delicious?
Well, I just had to put this sandwich (and my stomach) to the test.
The preparation for this spaghetti chili pizza sandwich is fairly easy, minus the tedious work that is making chili.
As I was making all of the various foods required for this monster of a sandwich, I wasn't too fazed by what I was about to eat. And then, once I had everything made and it was sandwich-prepping time, I regretted every single decision I have ever made in my life. Separately, chili, spaghetti, and pizza are wonderful and I love them very much. But the image of putting them together made me resent Jennifer Lawrence for bringing this into my life.
In terms of assembly, the pizza and the noodles are obviously easy to make. As far as the chili, Lawrence just said "southern chili with noodles." A lot of southern chili recipes call for noodles to be added (macaroni is commonly used), but I used spaghetti noodles for this and cooked them separately. I figured the flavors from the chili would still combine with the noodles once they were in the sandwich together. I got a frozen margherita pizza from my nearby grocery store. This served as the bread of my sandwich (godspeed). I know two recipes for chili that I learned from my mom and my grandma, and because one of the recipes doesn't take as long to make, I chose that one. (I will not be disclosing which of my mother and grandmother's recipes I chose because they're probably going to read this and I value my life.)
Next step: the eating.
Here's what the sandwich looked like fully assembled. Jesus, take the wheel.
I recruited my roommate, Victoria, to try this sandwich with me because if I was going to suffer, I didn't want to suffer alone, and Victoria is a martyr. Please note that it's impossible to photograph this meal in a way that makes it look appetizing. The above photo is quite literally its most flattering angle.
Before we took our first bite, Victoria said, "It's been nice knowing you," but after that first bite, we, surprisingly, didn't gag...? It was kind of... delicious? What's a word to describe something that's simultaneously disgusting and delicious?
The pizza was the best part about it. The flavors somehow took this sandwich from "why the hell would anyone think to mix these very different flavors together?" to "Ohhhhh, OK, I get it now." Victoria and I agreed that we would never choose to eat this again, but we definitely finished what was on our plates. The noodles didn't contribute much to the flavor, but they drastically affected the texture. The spice from the chili combined with the cheese from the pizza was a yummy combo (which isn't surprising, because chili and cheese are commonly mixed). And the crunch from the pizza did a good job of balancing out the texture of the chili and the noodles.
But don't get it twisted: I would never eat this again.
This was one of those moments where you don't hate something entirely, but you're definitely never going to try it again. The taste wasn't the worst thing in the world; I'd go so far as to say I genuinely enjoyed some of the bites. But about 20 minutes afterward, I felt more full than I ever have in my life and felt the genuine desire to go on a juice cleanse. It's such a massive carb load that it drains all of your energy. I couldn't look at food for the rest of the day after eating it.
TL;DR: Jennifer Lawrence's spaghetti chili sandwich doesn't taste horrible, but you'll want to go vegan the second you've finished it. You'll also need a bottle of Tums.
