Does Michelle Duggar Cook? Their Assembly Line Seems Suspicious

I have this bold Duggar family conspiracy theory and maybe it comes from seeing countless unsupervised kitchen pictures on Instagram: Michelle Duggar doesn't cook anymore. We say "anymore" because even this family wouldn't be able to wrangle infants to make a spaghetti pie (well, actually…). But we definitely believe that once enough kids were able to reach the counter, they were put to work to create a Duggar family assembly line. And circa 2013, Michelle was barely doing any cooking at all.

Why 2013? Uh, because Michelle all but admits that the children are making all the meals in a 2013 blog post on "Meal Plans and Involving the Kids." "We usually have teams of three or four kids that'll work together on the cooking," she explains. "If you get more than that, there are really just too many cooks in the kitchen! There's a leader and then the rest of them follow the instructions of the leader. We label everything so that whoever is in there can find things and know where they belong when they're doing cleanup."

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So uh, does Michelle just label food like "tater tots" and "mushroom soup" and have them figure the rest out? The long story short of it is that at this point it's probably Jana Duggar doing 75% of the cooking and the rest of the "little ones" forming an assembly line for the prep work. As Michelle will tell you, the little ones "love" to help out. Sure.

Well, scroll down for more context clues that Michelle Duggar has given up on cooking for her family.

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In '16 Kids and Moving In' we get a glimpse Michelle cooking…until, wait, look who steps in!

The answer is everyone. "In order to make a family this big run, nobody gets to be a slacker," Josh (ew) narrates. And Michelle explains it a step further. "Believe it or not, when we have five little ones it was much more difficult," she says. "But now, we all work together as team." Yup, this makes sense. While Michelle, out of necessity, definitely had to cook in the beginnings of their family, she was able to pass off responsibilities once the kids reached an age where they could be trusted with carving knives and 400-degree ovens.

So you know. Like at age seven.

Jana basically spearheads all the Duggar tutorial videos, including this telling one about how to make cucumber salad.

First of all, cucumber salad isn't a…salad. It's cucumbers with like vinegar and salt, and it's hilarious watching the boys bicker about what vinegar to use. Like, they're so used to this hilarious non-food because their mother doesn't cook any real meals, leaving the girls to improvise with glorified snacks.

Jana and Jill also led the "Let's make our own pickles" party, which could've had serious consequences.

In this particular venture they get a peppercorn grinder but — oh no! — need the peppercorns whole to properly make a pickle. Joy-Anna, genius that she is, decides to take a knife and literally cut the cap off. It's a uniquely Duggar-y safety hazard that could've been avoided with proper adult supervision. Alas, Michelle is nowhere to be found.

One episode reveals that Jinger is the "driving force" behind brunch, but does it say something that she can't finish it herself?

Like brunch is literally just scrambling eggs and adding champagne to orange juice (OK, maybe not in this family). So the fact that Jeremy and whatever-brother-it-is have to step up to help really speaks to how this family works. It's like Jinger only knows how to cook in an assembly line because, well, she does. Becoming a Duggar wife is all about unlearning that.

Honestly, I'm pretty sure Michelle is to blame for why Jessa is such a mediocre cook.

Because they don't really have recipes! They have things you can throw into a freaking pan to serve an army of children. It is very concerning to watch the Duggar Dinner Theater episode and have Jessa be so excited about cooking. "Well, I volunteered to be the woman in the kitchen for the dinner theater because I thought, 'Oh, this is perfect.' Because I'm used to cooking like, big pots of spaghetti or whatever for the whole family and I thought, 'Well, this is gonna be great because I'm just going to be cooking for two.'"

Yeah, Michelle isn't making dinner so Jessa has to rely on her signature dish, "Big Pot of Spaghetti." Sigh.

That leads us to our next observation…

But Michelle definitely has some, uh, interesting opinions on cooking for your husband.

When asked if a husband should "expect" a home-cooked meal from his wife, we were expecting a sickly sweet, "Yes." The actual answer is kind of strange. "Well you could expect but…expectations ruin relationships," she giggles (Duggles?). "Don't expect nothing. And if you come home and there is something you'll be so grateful!"

I agree hard with the first part, but there's something off about the second part. Like, as if that's the mentality she raised the kids with so they wouldn't be disappointed she ordered Chick-fil-A for the fourth night in a row.

When we finally, finally, finally witness Michelle cooking, she literally reveals her diabolical plan.

This clip dates back to 2013 (see?), it's about boys helping in the kitchen and really urges you to read between the lines. Or you know, just read the lines. "Whenever I'm cooking around the house, I always have little ones wanting to help, and that's my joy because I realize I am training them, so they can be efficient and responsible and hopefully, replace mom in the kitchen," she confesses. "That's my goal, I want to mentor them so that I can make disciples in the kitchen, so they can do what I done."

What, pour mushroom soup and tater tots into a pan?

Wait, Pause, Does Michelle Duggar Actually Cook Anything for Her Family Anymore?

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As early as 14 Kids and Pregnant Again, it's clear that the sisters are doing most of the cooking.

In '16 Kids and Moving In' we get a glimpse Michelle cooking…until, wait, look who steps in!

Jana basically spearheads all the Duggar tutorial videos, including this telling one about how to make cucumber salad.

Jana and Jill also led the "Let's make our own pickles" party, which could've had serious consequences.

One episode reveals that Jinger is the "driving force" behind brunch, but does it say something that she can't finish it herself?

In more recent episodes, Michelle never seems to go grocery shopping anymore.

Honestly, I'm pretty sure Michelle is to blame for why Jessa is such a mediocre cook.

When Jessa finally learns how to cook, she has to learn from freaking Ben's sisters.

But Michelle definitely has some, uh, interesting opinions on cooking for your husband.

When we finally, finally, finally witness Michelle cooking, she literally reveals her diabolical plan.

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