Homemade lasagna can be an exciting dinner, but one cooking mistake could instead make it electrifying — literally.
On Dec. 5, Threads user Tay Tanesha posted about her lasagna mishap: After the aluminum foil melted into it as it baked, it became inedible.
“I didn’t know aluminum foil melted in such low heat tf is this 🤔😒🤬,” she wrote.
In a trio of photos, we see the aftermath: The first shows the aluminum foil on top of the pan speckled with burn holes; the second shows the foil melted into the lasagna; and the third shows the many holes in the foil held up to the light.
“Did you set it to hell,” one user asked.
“Lasagna looking like E.T. at the end of the movie,” joked another.
But Tanesha is far from the first person to create such a charged dish — or, as one user put it, “L A S A G N A B A T T E R Y.”
What Is a ‘Lasagna Battery’?
“Me when I create a simple galvanic cell where the aluminum and steel act as electrodes and the food’s moisture/ions act as the electrolyte, causing the foil to corrode and the food to taste metallic 😔,” explained one person who clearly aced CHEM101.
“Put enough of these together and you can light an LED!” wrote another Threads user, posting an Instagram Reel of someone making lasagna batteries … on purpose.
A few folks wondered about the science involved in Tanisha’s melty metal mishap.
“Can you explain this is standard American English for me so I can explain it to my boyfriend who doesn’t believe I taste the metal when food is cooked in these types of pans???” one such user asked.
Batteries are devices that store electrical energy in the form of chemical energy, which convert that energy into electricity to conduct it. Your TV remote, mobile phone and mid-sized sedan all have different types of batteries — and others can be made with food like lemons, potatoes or, in this case, tomato sauce and pasta.
Lasagna Batteries in Pop Culture
According to a comment, lasagna batteries were mentioned in the sitcom “The Big Bang Theory.” A more recent clip in the Netflix show “A Man on the Inside” shows a lasagna battery created during a Thanksgiving dinner.
“I think what just happened was you accidentally made a lasagna battery,” Charles (Ted Danson) says in a Season 2 episode. “The steel pan acts as the cathode and the aluminum port, and then all the acid and the salt in the lasagna is the electrolyte. So a current just runs all through it.”
Smart, though Danson’s character then suggests scraping off the corrosion to serve, which is probably a bad idea.
Ted Danson (as Charles) with the lasagna battery in “A Man on the Inside” on Netflix.NetflixThe Science Behind Lasagna Batteries
Whether you make a lasagna with three or 50 layers, tomatoes and cheese need a metal pan and aluminum foil to conduct electricity. What happened to these lasagnas has a scientific term: galvanic corrosion, an electrochemical process that occurs when two different metals are in contact with each other in the presence of an electrolyte.
Shane C. Street, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Alabama, explains that a galvanic, or spontaneous, electrochemical cell in the dish “apparently formed” between the iron or steel pan and the aluminum in the foil, all supported by an electrolyte — namely, tomato sauce, which is salty and acidic.
“The aluminum oxidizes to aluminum oxide (gives up electrons) and iron oxide in the pan is reduced to metallic iron (takes the electrons),” Street explains to TODAY.com, adding that the overall reaction is exothermic, meaning it gives off heat and could become hot enough to melt aluminum.
The melting point of aluminum is 1220 F, by the way.
Jin Suntivich, associate professor of materials science and engineering at Cornell University, says the electrochemical reaction causes holes in the foil due to a few factors.
“Tomato sauce contains water and dissolved salts that allow charged atoms (so-called ‘ions’) to move,” Suntivich tells TODAY.com. “Aluminum foil is a material that readily gives up electrons, while oxygen in the air can accept them. Together, they form a battery that slowly eats away the foil.”
Suntivich says the principle is similar to an aluminum-air battery, which scientists have explored for energy storage like data centers and other large-scale applications.
“A more dramatic form of this reaction is called the thermite reaction,” Street adds. “This forms molten iron and gives off a tremendous amount of heat (energy), so much that it can be used in welding!”
He notes, though, that a thermite reaction and the exothermic nature of the lasagna may be making for a faster cooking environment. He adds the conditions of these two reactions are “totally different.”
“Science in action,” Street says of the accidental power source.
Regardless, while chemistry is a delightful subject to learn, maybe cook your next lasagna in a glass or ceramic pan to avoid any surprise lessons.
Dining and Cooking