I know I’m not the only one who’s watched the show Chopped and thought it would be such a fun game to compete in. Intense and stressful, but FUN!
When my family was coming for a visit after Christmas, I knew it was the perfect time to create our own version of the game to play at home. We had an absolute blast!
We had 16 people, so we had to change the format a little to fit our crowd. We ended up with eight teams, each team with one adult and one kid.
The TV show has four chefs competing in three rounds, with a chef being eliminated after each round. Instead of this, we had four rounds (appetizers, salads, main course, and dessert) with two teams competing in each round.
Everyone who wasn’t competing in a round scored the competitors on taste, creativity, and presentation. Instead of eliminating a team each round, we just tallied up the scores at the end and determined the winning team based on overall points.
Before the competition began, Tim made his famous margaritas. Here he is with my sisters-in-law, Amy and Jolynne.
I took so many pictures, and can’t help but share them as they tell the story better than I can. This is probably the most s I’ve shared in a post, but it’s fun to see how everything happened and let the pictures tell the story!
I created the “mystery box” ingredients for each round. I didn’t get as crazy as they do on the show because I figured it would be challenging enough for everyone to create a recipe on the fly, especially with the kids involved.
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Round 3: The Main Course
The main course was by far the hardest to execute, so I put my dad and brother on the job. My dad is amazing at coming up with recipes on the fly and my brother is great under pressure. My dad was paired with my niece Leah and Gavin was with Luke.
The pressure was on! My dad and brother Gavin both did a great job of including their young teammates.
My little Lukey was the youngest competitor, but he was so into it!
We used paper plates because 4 rounds with 16 plates needed in each round=too many dishes!
Papa (my dad) and Leah created an Asian-flavored chicken with rice in a tortilla and added the pear as a garnish.
Hey wait, is this a blog photo from 2010? I’m almost forgot what unstaged food taken in the dark looked like.
And here’s Gavin and Luke’s dish, a baked chicken and bacon taco with pear salsa and rice and asparagus on the side.
Overall the competition took a long time, but watching it was fun! Here’s my feisty mom watching the action.
And here she is again tasting everything with my niece Kailynn.
For the dessert round my brother Rob was paired up with Meghan and my mom was supposed to be paired up with my niece Kailynn. By this point my mom was really tired, though, so Carson stepped in and did a second round with Kailynn.
sweet canned dark cherries
semi-sweet chocolate baking bar
Kailynn was super impressive in this round. She made crepes from scratch with no recipe!
They created a cherry filling along with a chocolate topping with a chocolate bite on the side. They processed the bunny grahams and used them like a powered sugar topping for the chocolate bite.
Rob and Meghan made Cherry Garcia Double Chocolate Brownies.
Look at that intensity!
Meghan always wants to bake, so she was thrilled to be in the baking round.
Both desserts were so fabulous! A perfect way to end the evening.
Rob and Meghan’s presentation wasn’t the best, but this dessert was SO GOOD.
Kailynn and Carson rocked the presentation with their crepes. Despite the poor lighting and paper plate, can’t you see how great this was? Kailynn is 16 and Carson is 12!
The crepes ended up being the big winners. This board shows how the final scoring ended up.
Carson wrote the part about being featured on Happy Healthy Mama. At the time I wasn’t even sure if I was going to post about this, but it was too fun not to share!
If you get the chance, I highly recommend doing a Chopped competition at home. Our family had so much fun!
Food Network Chefs Compete In the At-Home Chopped Challenge | Chopped | Food Network
FAQ
How do you become a contestant on Chopped?
How to make Chopped at home?
How do I become a winning chopped competitor at home?
Become a winning Chopped competitor at home by taking the Chopped Dinner Challenge: Cook your way through a series of recipes developed by Food Network Kitchens that feature mystery basket ingredients from the show.
How do you do a chopped competition?
To do a Chopped competition make 2 or more baskets with the same ingredients and have each person (or team) compete against each other. Teams compete for or share resources in the kitchen (like the oven). Each team is judged on the outcome of their dish and there will be winners and losers.
How do you do a mystery food competition?
Make a basket of mystery food for each team. The baskets should all have the same ingredients. If you only have one can of something, but more than one team, divide it between the teams. See some Chopped mystery basket examples at the bottom of the post. Set a timer for however long you want the competition to last.
How do I create a chopped mystery basket challenge?
Use these ideas for inspiration to host your own Chopped mystery basket challenge at home. Each mystery basket should contain 4 ingredients. For the most creative outcomes, choose from several different food categories. For example, a mix of vegetable, fruit, grain, dairy, meat, legume, candy, sauce, etc rather than 4 vegetables.