Picture this: You and your partner are making dinner together. The music is playing, the wine is poured, and everything feels perfect. Then you open the oven and realize you used salt instead of sugar in the brownies. Or you drop the whole pot of spaghetti on the floor. Or you set off the smoke alarm for the third time this week. What do you do? Do you get frustrated and blame each other? Or do you bust out laughing and turn it into a memory you will talk about for years?

Here is the truth: Every couple who cooks together will mess up. It is not a matter of if, but when. The secret to keeping your kitchen mood light and fun is learning how to laugh at those moments instead of letting them ruin your evening. And one of the best ways to do that is by sharing your biggest cooking fails with each other.

Think about it. When you tell someone about the time you tried to make scrambled eggs and ended up with something that looked like a science experiment gone wrong, you are showing them a little piece of who you are. You are letting them see that you are not perfect, that you can laugh at yourself, and that you are willing to be a little vulnerable. That is gold in a relationship. It builds trust and closeness way faster than making a perfect five-star meal.

So next time you and your partner are standing in the kitchen, try this simple trick. Pause what you are doing and ask each other: “What is the worst thing you ever tried to cook?” Or, “Tell me about a time you ruined dinner completely.” You might be surprised what comes out. Maybe your partner once confused baking soda with baking powder and made cookies that tasted like metal. Maybe you tried to make grandma’s famous lasagna and forgot to cook the noodles first, so it turned into a crunchy mess. These stories are not embarrassing. They are gold mines for connection.

When you share a fail, do not just tell the facts. Tell the whole story. Describe the smell, the look on your face, the moment you realized something was wrong. Ask your partner to guess what happened next. Then let them tell their own story. Keep the conversation going. Ask follow up questions like, “Did you eat it anyway?” or “How long did it take you to try again?” The goal is not to judge or one-up each other. The goal is to laugh together and feel closer.

Here is another idea. Next time you mess up a recipe together, instead of getting stressed, make it a game. Give your disaster a funny name. Call it “The Great Soup Explosion” or “The Night We Made Charcoal Chicken.” Take a picture of the burnt food before you throw it away. Years from now, you will look back at that picture and smile. You will remember the laughter more than the ruined meal.

This kind of lighthearted sharing does something important for your relationship. It takes the pressure off. When you are cooking together, especially for the first few times, it is easy to feel like everything has to be perfect. You want to impress your partner. You want the meal to turn out amazing. But that pressure can make you tense, and tension kills the mood. By talking about fails, you give each other permission to be human. You say, without using words, “It is okay if we mess up. We are here to have fun, not to win a cooking competition.”

And here is a bonus. When you laugh together in the kitchen, your brains release feel-good chemicals. Laughter lowers stress hormones and releases endorphins. It actually makes you feel more bonded to the person you are laughing with. So by keeping the conversation fun and light while you cook, you are doing more than just passing the time. You are actively strengthening your emotional connection.

You do not have to tell only your own stories either. You can make up silly stories about the dish you are making. Pretend the carrots are complaining about being chopped. Give the onion a silly voice. Invent a backstory for the garlic. The sillier, the better. The whole point is to keep the mood playful and relaxed.

So the next time you step into the kitchen with your partner, remember this: The recipe is not the most important thing on the counter. Your connection is. And the best way to protect that connection is to share a laugh, especially when things go wrong. Talk about your biggest kitchen disasters. Laugh at them. Learn from them. And watch how those little moments of shared humor bring you closer than any perfect dinner ever could.