30 Dishes That Will Change Your Mind About Eating Insects

This breakfast was created by the team at Nordic Food Labs, who explain how the larvae taste “something of egg and honey, and worm honeydew melon”. Read the full recipe here.

This breakfast packs 9g of protein per serving. You can buy a bag for from Hopper Food’s website.

There is no shortage of startup companies trying to sell you cricket flour. This cricket banana bread was made by Next Millennium Farms.

An alternative to potato chips (crisps if you’re English), “chirps” have around 40% less fat and three times the protein. They are of course made from crickets, and you can buy them here.

These are ideal for bodybuilders and paleo snackers.

Thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign, these cricket-based crackers will be hitting shelves (and stomachs) in three flavours – classic sea salt, rosemary garlic, and “everything”.

This traditional Aztec delicacy is made from the larvae and pupae of Mexican ants, harvested from the roots of tequila and mezcal plants. They have a buttery, nutty taste and a texture similar to cottage cheese.

Pronounced “chap-o-leen” cooked grasshoppers are another indigenous dish from Mexico. Apparently they are best toasted with garlic, lime juice and agave worm extract. Their popularity is surging, with restaurants serving them up in New York, London, Paris and even Pembrokeshire.

If you live in San Francisco you can buy one of these at Don Bugito. If you don’t live in San Francisco, you can order waxworms online and build your own taco.

Salad at Don Bugito...

...and dessert at Don Bugito

This sushi-inspired design is made from caterpillar. The same team have also invented grasshopper pate...

Speaking of locally grown, insects don’t just bring farming back to urban areas (which reduces food miles). With projects like The Open Bug Farm, people are starting to rear meat in their kitchens and living rooms. Grasshopper pate is far more environmentally sensible than goose liver pate.

Fried spider is a regional speciality in Cambodia, with a delicate white meat that tastes “like a cross between chicken and cod". These tarantula doughnuts were served in Bugs Cafe, Siem Reap.

This dish from Typhoon restaurant in California helps illustrate that scorpions are essentially lobsters.

This gourmet piece of entomophagy is the brainchild of Parisian chef Elie Daviron from the restaurant Le Festin Nu.

These worms have a bodyweight of around 26% protein and 51% fat, making them delicious.

This dessert treat is from a Cordon Bleu gastronomy seminar held in February. Bamboo worms are used to make the crust, while stink bugs are infused into its tiramisu cream.

Here a Cordon Bleu chef demonstrates how to turn these cockchafer beetles into something moreish.

This is the invention of edible bug blogger and author Danielle Martin. After being sauteed in a splash of butter and honey until crispy golden brown, bee larvae make the perfect substitute for bacon. Read the full recipe here.

This is part of the exciting menu being unveiled at Grub Kitchen, the UK’s first insect restaurant.

From the chef genius René Redzepi, this plate was served at a popup restaurant in Tokyo. Food critics described it as “shockingly good”.

These are basically shrimps (see above).

This if just one of many insect dishes presented in Michelin-starred restaurant Aphrodite.

Larry Peterman has been selling these sweeties since the early 1980s.

These ants have special significance to indigenous people from northern Australia. This picture is from Peter Menzel’s book Man Eating Bugs. The cupcakes were made by Vic Cherikoff.

These original flavour snacks don’t seem quite as extraordinary, when given some glossy packaging.

Buy some here.

Snails are not insects, but they are still creepy crawly. Nevertheless, they have been eaten in France since prehistoric times and remain as popular as ever, despite being no weirder than crickets, waxworms or bee larvae.