How to Cook with Bugs
Mealworm Stirfry
Mealworms
A delicious treat. Small mealworms taste like flaxseed when they’re fried, but also take on the flavor of the cooking oil. We suggest using mealworms in meatballs to create a 50/50 beef and insect combination and serve with your favorite spaghetti sauce. Looking for dessert? Toast the mealworms and then cover them in chocolate for a sweet, nutty, crunchy treat.
Crickets
Crickets taste like whatever they’ve eaten in the days before they’re harvested. If you feed them a specific fruit or vegetable, they’ll pick up that flavor. Try feeding your crickets apples for a sweet, fresh taste that goes great with chocolate or with salt. They are commonly milled into flour and can be used as a staple in the kitchen.
Tomato Horn Worm
This is one pest that belongs in a pan. Fry these caterpillars up with green tomatoes and seasoning, and you’ll have a delicious summer treat.
Dragonflies - Flying Shrimp
Dragonflies taste like shrimp, and you can grill or roast them. Remove the wings before cooking, and then add them to gumbo, curry, or salads for protein and taste.
Cicadas - A Feast Every 17 Years
Get them when they’ve just emerged, before their shells have hardened. If you batter them and fry them, they’ll taste like lobster tail.
June Bugs
Heat a tablespoon of oil in a stovetop popcorn popper. Add June bugs, and they’ll pop just like popcorn. Chefs describe them as tasting like butter and nuts. Sprinkle the popped bugs with parmesan cheese for a warm, crunchy snack.
Aphids
If you eat fresh or frozen produce, you’re already eating aphids. Avid gardeners recommend soaking aphid-infested greens in salt water to remove the garden pests before eating. However, the bugs don’t have a strong taste, and they’re a good source of protein. Instead of soaking, try freshly ground black pepper. The spice will mask the mild, nutty flavor of aphids, but let you enjoy the extra nutrition they’ll provide to your salad.
Chapulines - Grasshoppers
Grasshoppers taste like a combination of shrimp and whatever they’ve been eating. Mexican grasshoppers collected in cornfields taste like corn. To cook grasshoppers, stir fry them with garlic, lime or lemon juice, and hot peppers. You’ll have a crunchy, flavorful treat.
Maggots
Maggots are fatty and buttery, and they take on the flavor of their food. To raise maggots in your own home, use fruit or potatoes. Eat them uncooked or pan fried. Fried maggots take on the flavor of the oil they’re fried in, so try olive oil or sesame oil if you plan on using them as a spread for bread or crackers.
Badger maggots
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You're Cooking Roaches?!
Cooking Cockroaches
Unless you’re stuck in a post-apocalyptic starvation situation, you probably don’t want to eat these familiar insects. Roaches have scent glands which give them an unpleasant, musky flavor. With so many tastier bugs available, you should give the American Cockroach a pass.
Wax Worms
When you fry them, they have a light, potato like taste with a hint of honey. You can use them to add sweetness to a salad, or to make a sauce for a dessert. Many people prefer to eat them salted, as a sweet yet salty snack food. Here's a recipe for a, thick, creamy sauce made from wax worms.
Mopane worms - Delicacies in African
Common in Africa as a great, low-fat, high-protein food. They are also on the menu in a few French restaurants. Here's a closer look. Mopane worms are a staple part of the diet in some rural areas and considered a delicacy in the cities there. They can be eaten dry or cooked and drenched in tomato sauce. cook them in a stew with potatoes, tomatoes, spices, garlic, and coconut milk.
Water Boatman - An Aztec Treat
Their eggs are collected and used as a dip or spread. They have a mild shrimp flavor, much like a shrimp salad. The spread, ahuahutle, is sometimes called ‘Aztec Caviar’ and can be used as an appetizer.
Thai Giant Water Bugs
Roasted or boiled, you can remove the meat and add it to sauces. To eat a deep fried water bug, remove the wings. Then break the head off the body. Scoop the meat out of the body, then eat the meat inside the head. The meat has the texture of scrambled eggs and tastes like scallops.
Witchetty grub fry up
Australia’s favorite insect dish is the Witchetty Grub, the wood-eating larva of a moth. If you eat it raw, it tastes like almonds. However, Australians also roast them, pan-fry them with fish, grill them on skewers and eat them in a creamy onion and pepper soup.
Termites Trouble
Depending on where you harvest them, termites can taste like pineapples, mint, or fresh vegetables. Fry them in butter with curry powder, and you have a sweet and spicy treat that gives you powerful proteins and fats instead of calorie-laden carbs.
Bamboo Worms
Bamboo worms are another Thai delicacy. They’re also expensive. In the cities, they can cost as much as $8.00 a pound, proof that insects aren’t just a poor man’s food. When they’re deep fried and salted, the worms taste like potato chips.
Eating Fried Bamboo Worms in Bangkok
Delicious fried bamboo worms at Huai Kwhang Night Market in Bangkok, Thailand.
Escamoles
Escamoles are ants native to Mexico and the American Southwest. You can harvest the larvae, sautee them in butter, and then use them as a rice or pasta substitute in many dishes. Some chefs serve escamoles on their own, paired with a white wine, because of their delicate, buttery flavor.