“Mr.Krabs is not a master chef” Mr.Krabs: *peels and entire potato at once with no mistakes*

“There is no secret ingredient... To make something special, you just have to believe it’s special.” -Mr. Ping, Kung Fu Panda

Matpat: "We treat nothing as sacred" Diet coke: Am I a joke to you?

Well, the formula isn't how the patty is put together, it's the spices and herbs put into the meat. The episode Friend or Foe explains that the formula was created when several different ingredients fell into the meat Mr. Krabs uses, thus creating what he called, "the perfect patty batter." So the formula actually hasn't been solved!

Matt: "There is NO secret" Me: *Kungfu Panda flashback *

your next spongebob theory should be how Plankton stays in business

the Sponge on The Run movie basically confirms this since they did a whole song saying that the reason why everyone loves Krabby Patties so much is because Spongebob cooks them in a pratically flawless way

Whatever the secret ingredient is, it has to fit within the price point of a Krabby patty. I highly doubt Mr Krabs would lose money

Alternate theory: The secret that makes the Krabbi Pattys so good is actually Spongebob. His high integrity and extreme love of his work means that he produces burgers at a level of quality that no ordinary person ever would. The secret formula is a mcguffin that only exists so that Plankton will keep trying to steal it instead of simply abducting and/or recruiting Spongebob. It's why he's the only fry cook, and why The Krusty Krab was never franchised even though Mr Krabbs is so money obsessed, and why the product failed once they tried to mass produce it in factories, and why the Krusty Krab has to practically shut down whenever Spongebob can't work. No other employee will have the same passion Spongebob has while working for so little as Spongebob does, so Mr Krabbs can never simply replace him.

Well, two things. First, in Friend or Foe, we see Mr Krabs create the formula by accidently adding a bunch of ingredients to the patty batter when they fell in, and it made the burger taste perfect after many failed attempts. Next, in the SpongeBob movie, which is cannon, Plankton steals the formula and is able to turn his burgers into being as good, so there is a real secret ingredient. However, Mr Krabs has created fake formulas before, so you'd be correct in thinking that one was gibberish.

"Maybe the real secret formula are the memories we got along the way"

Nah brother krabby patties are made of crab Evidence: Few krabs in the show, Krusty Krab is a crab trap, and mr krabs eats a krabby patty and say, "Oh so that's what I taste like."

@MatPat, see normally I'd agree with you, but on this topic I can't for many reasons. Firstly, in Mr Krabs' flashback from season 1 or 3 about his history with Plankton, he clearly shows how he creates the Patty by mistake after knocking a bunch of ingredients into a mystery meat pot. He tastes it and he's shocked at how good it tastes so he writes down the ingredients and markets it the next day. He's not a master chef, he was an intermediate chef at best and just happened to stumble on to a master recipe. My second point is remember in another episode when they run out of pattys? Mr Krabs and SpongeBob are talking in the kitchen and Krabs tells SpongeBob to just make a fresh batch, but since it's been so long since either of them have made a Patty from scratch, they've both forgotten how to actually make one so SpongeBob and Patrick go on a train heist to go to a super secure bank where the real formula is stored. As a side note, it's also been shown that Krabs apparently licensed the formula for the Patty to another company to mass produce them for him and gets them delivered via armored truck as seen in another episode but I forget which. Lastly, if the recipe is a huge placebo as you claim it to be, why is it that every time Plankton manages to make a good burger, or take over the sea, it's only after he gets and reads and forgets apparently (for the sake of plot) the Krabby Patty formula? He's not an idiot, if he read it and found out it's a placebo like the dragon scroll in Kung Fu Panda, he'd say so... loudly. My point is, I think the placebo theory is too much of a cop out. Hillenburg may have made something that is harder to find than the holy Grail, garden of Eden, Atlantis, and the library of Timbuktu combined, but I believe that it is there somewhere. It just doesn't add up that it would be a placebo, or else that's one hell of a reality warping placebo.

Telling people our favorite cartoon are addicted to cocaine is like cocaine for Mat

French salad dressing is the secret formula! It makes cheeseburgers taste delicious! Also, how the cheeseburgers are made: first the bun, then the burger, then lettuce, then cheese, then tomato, then onions, then pickles, followed by French dressing and then mayonnaise and then top bun. If you want it spicy, add jalapeños below the pickles. Cheddar cheese is even better.

Your theory gets more and more believable, the longer I watch the video. I feel like this c po old be very true in the spongebob universe but the writers probably set it up perfectly like that, unintentionally

Telling you that your favorite cartoon characters are addicted to cocaine is like my favorite pastime - MatPat 2019

1:03 Flashbacks to how “Sweet Victory” wasn’t shown at the Super Bowl.

Can I just say this guy would be an amazing lawyer in an advertisement court case

Just getting to see how the editing has improved over the years is just great ( it’s still great here btw )

"Telling you your favourite cartoon characters are addicted to cocaine is like my favourite pastime"

*The secret ingredient to the Krabby Patty formula is* HOOPLA

6:57 "But what he is, is an expert business man." The visual completely confirms this.

2:10-3:10 In the Hashslinging slasher episode the secret sauce is also mentioned. However it’s possible the secret sauce is also some type of marinade used for the patties

“The McDonalds brand is about reliability” “Sorry the ice cream machine isn’t working”

But there's a couple flaws...in the season 9 episode 'Salsa Imbecilicus', we see that at the very end of the semester, the day of everyone's graduation from Bikini Bottom University that Mr. Krabs has devised the Krabby Patty's secret formula. It's also shown in ' Larry the Floor Manager' that bodybuilders who have never tried the krabby patty fall instantly in love with it, and that in many instances we see that Bikini Bottomites follow the sweet smell of a Krabby Patty. Not only those points, but it is also mentioned that there is mayonnaise in the Krabby Patty burger in 'Planet of the Jellyfish.' That may also be made of crab since in The Netherlands, the show's name for Krabby Patties means "Crab Burgers." In the episode 'Selling Out,' when people eat the synthetic Krabby Patties, they immediately notice the difference in taste, further proving the fact that there is a secret formula. I love Matt, his theories, and his channel, and this is my first time actually doing something like this, but these were just a couple of things I noticed and found out. Help Matt see this message!! Thanks

The secret is in the patty, it's made out of crab meat, in one episode mr krabs takes a burger from an orange child fish, bites a bit and says, "so that's what I taste like", which makes sense, because crabs are cannibals. And if it's real, that the patty is made out of crab meat, it makes sense why it's called "krabby" patty or "Krusty krab"

we all know that "love" is the secret ingredient that spongebob puts in the krabby patties. he just wants his customers to eat and experience the best burger.

I feel like they're gonna reveal what the secret formula is in the final episode...if Spongebob ever ends.

Good ol' Steven Hillenburg... The Stan Lee of Nickelodeon.

I've always thought that the secret formula was that MR. Krabs made the patty out of crab hence why they call the burger the crabby patty and MR. Krabs didn't want anyone to know so he says that there's a secret ingredient even though he's practically telling every one by calling it a crabby patty

What if the ingredients text is actually a form of Lorem ipsum used by the writers to keep the formula as vague as possible to the audience!

everyone knows the krabby patty secret formula is in area 51

in the first spongebob film where Neptunes crown was stolen, Plankton actually stole the formula and started selling krabby patties. If it really was marketing wouldn't had Plankton just sold them after the movie anyway ?

I randomly decided to research this topic last night and thought of this theory. Apparently one of the show's creators clarified that the formula is intentionally in jibberish to keep the audience from seeing it. That said, I think marketing could still be the source of the Krabby Patty's success since we know for a fact that Mr. Krabs is ironically a horrible chef and made the original batter by accident. Supporting that is the fact that the few times the Chum Bucket has been successful are also the few times where Plankton had a better gimmick or marketing campaign than Mr. Krabs, and even turned his rival's own word-of-mouth strategy against him in one episode.

How does his videos age so well?? When you open this video, you cannot tell the difference from one from recently.

Here's a giant hole in this theory. In the episode "Friend or Foe", Karen says that when Krabs and Plankton were kids and had their own restaurant together, they had a falling out and ended up tearing a recipe. Plankton got a tiny portion that only said "Chum" while Krabs got the rest of the recipe. Now a really interesting Spongebob theory would be on Old Man Jenkins. The various incarnations, all the odd things that happen to him (he literally got poisoned in the episode I mentioned), etc

Idk if this is true though... In one episode, I don't remember the name, they ran out of Patties and lost the formula, so Mr Krabs who doesn't know the formula by heart asked SpongeBob to make the patties since he remembers it cause he reads and uses it all the time, but SpongeBob makes himself forget it so he can't be made to give it to someone,they spend the rest of the episode to get it back. Mr Krabs needed the secret formula to make one, this proves the theory wrong, I like this theory but my SpongeBob knowledge is too much

Didn’t plankton and Krabs create the recipe together? That would tell me plankton has first-hand knowledge of the object of his pursuit.

Wow, I was genuinely excited for the answer, and then Mat started talking about marketing half way through the video. The answer can probably be found in the episode Friend or Foe. It contains seaweed sauce, dried kelp, chum, and some other ingredience in glass bottles that fell in while plankton stormed out.

Rest in peace Stephen Hillenburg. You was love and will be remembered forever.

Don’t forget that Mr Krabs has 2 bottles with the formula, shown in a movie. The bottle that plankton stole could be the fake one , and the real formula could be somewhere else.

Thank you for this video Mat

Teacher: remember to show ur work! Matpat:

Mr. Krabs even got me talking. Crazy how a fictional character got me helping his market.

The gibberish formula could've just been a decoy, and Mr. Krabs just acts like it's the real deal so everyone will believe him. Nobody would leave something like that just lying around inside the safe in the restaurant.

I remember as a kid buying a magazine from Clan, the channel that screened spongebob and other cartoons in my country (Spain), because it had the krabby patties (burguer cangreburguer in Spain) formula, and just getting completely traumatized when I read that it had crab sauce over the patty.

I accept Alex Bale’s theory that it’s pearl’s dead mother. She was so huge that crabs has practically an endless supply

Imagine if they open a real Krusty krab restaurant and the whole spongebob series was just a huge commercial

This video is brought to you by the Chum Bucket: Come eat at the Chum Bucket, where we now will start selling Krabby Patties.

I’ve heard that the creator of the show, Stephen Hillenburg, stated that the patties are actually vegetarian. Great video though!

The secret ingredient is shredded receipts so Mr Krabs can evade taxes

I CRACKED THE CODE!!! the second formula had secret sauce but it was missing tomatoes, mustard, and ketchup. I believe that you get secret sauce by putting tomatoes, mustard, and ketchup in a blender and mixing the up.

Are you sponsored by Chum Bucket or something?

That’s what I’ve always thought the Krabby Patty secret formula was, even since I was a kid.

If food theory was made around the time of this video, this would definitely have been a food theory video

I’m honestly shocked you haven’t done this one before

The theory makes sense, but MatPat I think you forgot about the Spongebob season 5 episode 1 "Friend or Foe" episode where mr krabs and plankton remember their time making the very first krabby patty. So there might be something more behinds the secret formula. You should look into it.

Spoilers for the episode “the hankering” I think that krabby Patties are made from chum, I know what you’re thinking, since chum is terrible and krabby Patties are delicious, it can’t possibly be chum, right? Well, in the episode “the hankering” it is revealed mr krabs has a love for chum, and the chum place that he goes to shuts down, and so the only other place that serves chum is the chum bucket, but mr krabs refuses to go there, and even if he wanted to plankton would not allow it unless it was for the secret formula in return, so he gets SpongeBob to cook a chum alternative, and the first thing SpongeBob uses for chum is krabby Patties, mr krabs tries it and says it’s delicious, but he turns it down, only because it’s “too delicious” not because it doesn’t taste like chum, so it is possible that krabby patties are made from chum, however they are reshaped so they do not look gross and seasoned so they do not taste gross, of course there is one problem, if krabby Patties are made from chum, why doesn’t mr krabs just eat the chum that is used to make krabby patties? Well, 1.He could have forgotten And 2. It is shown that it seems like he can’t control himself when it comes to chum, he could accidentally eat too much chum in one sitting resulting in not as many, or no krabby patties, and mr krabs values money more than he values his own life (this is the same crustacean who buried himself alive to ensure people would come to his restaurant) and at the end of the episode mr krabs has to eat all of plankton’s chum to get to the secret formula since the secret formula fell into the chum supply, and he loses his taste for chum, so he would never even have to dip into the krusty krab’s chum supply, so I do think it’s very possible that the krabby patty secret ingredient is chum

I have one leading theory: Mr. Krabs uses other crabs to make his patties. You never see crab relatives or any other crab in the show, just him. Even when he eats a Krabby Patty, he says: "Hmm.. so that's what I taste like."

"ITS LOVE! THE SECRET INGREDIENT IS LOVE!" -The Spongebob Movie: Sponge out of Water

Except theres a later episode where we see how Krabs and Plankton actually started the krusty krab and then got in a fight when krabs accidentally makes the perfect krabby patty mixture. Episode Name: Friend or Foe, Season 5 episode 1 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friend_or_Foe_(SpongeBob_SquarePants) Sorry b, had to do it to em

Alternate Alternate theory: The secret that makes the Krabbi Pattys so good is actually is a crab

did you notice that the crusty crab is shaped exactly like a crab trap, my theory is that the paty in the burger is made out of crabs and that is why mr crabs doesn't want anyone to know the seacret formula

Yo is this like in kung fu panda. there is no secret in the noodles

All you gotta do is say *Raviolli Raviolli give me the formuloni* Edit: it's a joke there is an episode where plankton becomes a mr. Krabs robot and tries to get the formula but spongebob told him to say that

Mr.Krabs is just stashing Pearl’s Mother and that’s the secret formula

I think it’s actually made of crab and that’s why the building looks like one of those crab jail things. The reason mr crabs likes money so much is because the only way he is free from becoming a burger is to keep making money.

Me before watching the video: "Please don't go for the "There is no secret formula" cliché" The video: *goes for the "There is no secret formula" cliché*

Plankton: *Years of academy training wasted*

in spanish, when spongebob lists the ingredients he mentions krab when putting the patty

Though I like the idea, I don’t think it goes well with the Mr Krabs and Plankton backstory episode (Friend or Foe). Mr Krabs just wanted to make an amazing burger, not money, and he did have a recipe. As well as that, the kids they sold it to (who may have hated them, IDK) loved it when it didn’t even have the marketing name. No answer just doesn’t seem to fit the plot here.

Wasn't there a episode when it was a flashback when Plankton and Mr Krabs worked together and Mr krabs accidentally knocked ingredients into a pot to make the secret formula?

I do have a few problems with this theory. 1. In the episode The Inside Job, Plankton does gather the formula from spongebobs heart and learns how delicious it is but quickly loses it when he extracts Patrick’s mind into his making him stupid and forgetting it. 2. In the first movie he does get the formula and makes krabby Pattie’s at the chum bucket. 3. In the second movie Burger Beard does use the formula to make his own burgers. 4. Multiple times in the show SpongeBob reads off of the formula. 5. The Krabby Patty is cooked in several ways it really doesn’t matter “with the works”. 6. It’s possibly something similar to cocaine, first people get severe cramps when not eating Pattie’s after a certain amount of time. Second people like squidward get visions of sentient Pattie’s. Third the people riot and go mentally insane when there are no pattys.(in the second movie) and last when SpongeBob try’s a patty from the original fry cook Jim, he goes through a acid trip after eating it, and his security says “no one watches Jim” when he cooks, possibly meaning he tampered the burgers with something. Also it might be the talent of the cook.

You are correct about marketing, but I don't think that is it. I think the secret ingredient is spong bob. Water passing through a sea sponge carries particulates. Clearly the locals enjoy the taste. This would explain why the restaurant does poorly whenever sponge Bob isn't there and why Mr. Krabs works so hard to keep him from leaving.

*Plankton has entered the chat*

“Mr Crabs is NOT an expert chef” *plays clip of him peeling a potato in ONE PEEL while SPINNING IT ON A CLAW LIKE A BASKETBALL*

I think the secret ingredient is beef cows don’t live underwater so it would be a complete mystery on where it comes from also plankton makes his food using chum any restaurant owner would know burgers are made using beef

This felt like a film and a food theory at the same time

*Plankton:* FINALLY NOW I HAVE THE FORMULA, TRY AND STOP ME KRABS!

Sorry to throw a wrench in this theory but the episode friend or foe actually disproves this. It shows a time when Mr. Krabs and Plankton couldn't make a good burger until it got a random ingredient added to it making it taste great. It proves that it actually is an ingredient as opposed to marketing.

Option 3: its a fake formula, while rivals are focus on trying to steal it, the real one is somewhere else

ITS LITERALLY CRABS. Think about, we don’t really see much crabs except for Mr.Krabs and when the health inspector comes to the Krusty Krab and Mr,Krab tries the Patty out, he says, “so that’s what I taste like”.

The secret recipe is love... duh

But what about that one episode where Mr.Krabs and Plankon tell their origins on how they became enemies and it shows one scene where a bunch of stuff falls in the giant pot and when Mr.Krabs tastes it and found out the formula?

There are two wrenches to be thrown in the theory: 1. In the episode "friend or foe", we do see that after young plankton slams the door, a shelf was knocked down, dumping various ingredients into the patty batter, then the young Mr.krabs tastes it and enjoys the favor. 2. In the episode "Patty Caper", it turns out there is a secret ingredient in less than two minutes into the episode.

The secret ingredient is crab meat Because we never got to see a crab family I this entire show.

*The real formula is under Mr krabs mattress.*

*Plankton has joined the chat*

Can’t believe it’s been 6 years r.i.p.

Remember that episode where the flashback shows the ingredients you mist it

Plot twist : The Krabby Patty is a hot dog in disguise...

The secret ingredient is actually love ❤️

If only food theory was alive when this came out

This is an amazing theory, but what about the SpongeBob movie, where plankton finds the formula and takes over making the krabby pattys?

There’s a few problems with your theory: 1.Earlier In that band episode you mentioned plankton hears sponge bob singing the recipe, well gibberish and the amounts, most likely that’s a reference to it and the real formula is hidden in crabs house , in another episode (the one where plankton comes for the formula with his family) get scared and runs when he learns what in the fake formula , crabs says he hide it somewhere else , squidwards guess his house and he’s right.Crabs must have been hiding the real formula at his house the whole time. 2.Most likely crabs didn’t include the whole list of ingredients because remember it was the patty with the works and he just listed the main ingredients to save money on how long his commercial was, and the reason sponge bob doesn’t include secret sauce is because if you look , you see crabs didn’t bring the sauce fearing plankton might try to steal it. 3.we see in one episode that the sauce isn’t made in the restaurant, we see it get delivered by military men, and we see crabs stealing it to try not to pay to get it made. Finally: we see in the movie a pirate using a magic book to steal the formula to make crabby patties on the surface and we see people buying the burgers and loving it even though they haven’t seen or heard of it before, proving you theory false! Check and mate matpat

Hmmmm something’s missing... I know! The secret ingredient! *Salt*

You're probably right. How sacrilegious would it be if the Krabby Patty secret formula turned out to be Chum with added MSG? 🧂🤣

As fun as this episode is, the show just has way too many continuity clashes about the formula for there to ever be a real answer. One time Krabs claimed it was a family recipe, another time it was something he accidentally discovered from random ingredients spilling into batter after Plankton stormed out, the new spin off show that totally rewrites how the characters all met has Spongebob inventing it as a kid, and as was brought up in this episode the build of the burgers changes across the series. There just isn't a way to bring it al together cleanly 😅

2:58 this list is wrong. The "secret sauce" is a marketing trick used by Mr Krabs to make his burgers seem more original and unique; it's just ketchup and mustard. It's never heard in the show other than on advertisements. the "Undersea veggies & cheese" are lumped together because the cheese is in between the veggies. The "Undersea veggies" include tomatos, lettuce and onions.