'I Cooked Salmon in My Dishwasher During the Normal Wash Cycle—and My Dinner Guests Had No Idea'

A growing contingent of online experimenters is looking at household appliances and asking a simple question: what else can this thing do?

It starts innocently enough with a standard salmon fillet. Instead of firing up a pan or preheating an oven, some home cooks seal the fish inside tight aluminum foil packets or glass mason jars, place them on the top rack of an electric dishwasher, and hit start. Forty-five minutes later, out comes a gently steamed dinner alongside clean coffee mugs.

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Proponents of the method point to basic physics. Standard residential dishwashers reach internal temperatures between 130 and 150 degrees Fahrenheit during their wash and rinse cycles. That heat profile happens to closely match professional sous-vide immersion circulators, which cook food slowly in controlled water baths.

However, the concept has ignited intense pushback across online communities. Skeptics argue that trusting an appliance built for removing grease to cook high-protein food is a recipe for disaster.

One commenter noted that dishwasher heat elements cycle irregularly, meaning internal temperature swings could easily leave parts of a fish raw while overcooking the rest. Another user argued that micro-tears in aluminum foil could allow soapy residue to seep directly into the meal, ruining the fish and potentially causing stomach distress.

Food safety experts tend to side with the skeptics. Official guidelines recommend cooking fish to an internal temperature of 145 degrees Fahrenheit to eliminate harmful bacteria, a threshold that dishwashers do not reliably maintain throughout a wash.

Yet the culinary curiosity does not end in the kitchen. Over in the living room and bathroom, extreme DIYers are pushing boundary lines even further. During summer parties, host accounts regularly surface showcasing top-loading washing machines repurposed as gigantic beverage coolers. Filled with forty pounds of ice and aluminum cans, the appliances keep drinks icy cold while utilizing their built-in spin cycles to drain away melted water.

While washing machine coolers are largely considered harmless—provided the drain filter does not get clogged with loose bottle caps—other viral shortcuts cross into clear hazard territory. One popular rental workaround involves filling wall holes or couch cushions with expanding polyurethane construction foam. While the foam cures hard instantly, its intense expanding force has been known to bow wooden door frames and melt synthetic fabric cushions from internal chemical heat.

Even more controversial is the habit of submerging beverage cans inside the upper reservoir tank of porcelain toilets to keep them cold when fridge space runs out. While the water in the upper tank comes directly from the clean municipal supply line before reaching the bowl, critics point out that condensation and biological aerosols make the arrangement wildly unhygienic.

One commenter observed that the psychological urge to 'outsmart' designed products often blinds people to basic common sense. Another argued that the joy of finding a secret function in an everyday object is simply too tempting for natural problem solvers to resist.

Whether these techniques represent unorthodox genius or simple internet shock value, one thing is certain: standard household appliances may never be viewed quite the same way again.

On the latest episode of the podcast, the hosts dig into these extreme shortcuts, testing the science behind appliance hacking and crowning the absolute worst life hack on the internet.