No Problem! The competing chefs are challenged to make delicious dishes from plant-based mystery basket ingredients. A marvel of modern food science is the centerpiece of the first basket, and a crispy green makes an appearance in round two.
Kimball Musk—restaurateur and brother of Tesla CEO Elon Musk—is a guest judge on the long-running competitive cooking show where contestants create gourmet meals, this time using only vegetarian ingredients.
Long-running Food Network show Chopped recently aired an episode titled “No Meat, No Problem,” which challenged contestants to create meals using only vegetarian ingredients. On the show, contestants must impress judges with meals they created within a limited time period using ingredients from a mystery box revealed at the beginning of each of the three segments (appetizer, entrée, and dessert). Along with celebrity chef judges Alex Guernecelli and Chris Santos, the meatless episode featured guest judge Kimbal Musk—a restaurateur and brother of Tesla CEO Elon Musk. While the episode did feature dairy products, the show’s four “chef-testants” worked with a variety of plant-based ingredients, including eggplant, basil, rhubarb, dates, Buffalo cauliflower wings, and plant-based burger patties. “It’s a plant protein that has a texture the same as beef and has soy-based blood,” Musk described the burger. “It actually bleeds. If you cook it to medium rare it will bleed just like any other burger. It’s incredible.” While the contestants were busy cooking, the judges discussed Meatless Monday. “That’s the direction I think a lot of people are going in,” Santos said. “I notice when I do a meatless day, it completely seems to reset my digestive system.” Chef Joya Carlton (who developed the recipe for plant-based lox at vegan deli Orchard Grocer in New York City) was eliminated in the first round and Jeffery Salazar (executive chef at Parsnip restaurant in Cambridge, MA) went on to win the competition. On the other side of the pond, BBC Wales aired Dirty Vegan (an entirely vegan cooking show featuring former Dirty Sanchez star Matthew Pritchard) in January and teased future vegan shows after its successful run.
Never miss out on breaking stories, recipes, and vegan deals
All-things vegan, in your mailbox and inbox
The Vegan CHOPPED CHALLENGE: Episode 1
FAQ
Has Chopped ever done a vegan episode?
Who is the vegan chef in Chopped?
How much do Chopped contestants get paid?
Is Scripps doing a vegan cooking show?
Internally, Scripps, which owns Food Network and Cooking Channel, had been looking to do a vegan cooking show, bypassing the middle ground of vegetarianism altogether, when Jason Wrobel’s reel landed on their desks in 2012.
What happens in chopped kitchen?
Things get strange in the Chopped Kitchen when the chefs face baskets filled with the most bizarre ingredients imaginable. Chefs get creative making dishes using unusual ingredients such as bologna cake, snow fungus soup, stroopwafels, and kransekake. Chefs struggle during the second round when having to develop tasty entrees using beef kidneys.
Is jazzy vegetarian a vegan show?
Along with the more cut-and-dry Christina Cooks, Jazzy Vegetarian is a vegan show that’s had surprising longevity. First airing on Oregon Public Broadcasting for the Portland crowd, it’s outgrown its original trajectory of a two-season run as it enters the pre-production stages for its seventh season.
Do vegetarians do well on cooking competitions?
When vegetarian and vegan chefs do appear on cooking competitions, they tend to be introduced as foils to “normal” chefs. “Vegetarians never do well on these shows,” Cohen said. She dissected the episode in her comic-strip-style cookbook, depicting her hand-wringing over whether to go on the show using the trope of the shoulder angel and devil.