The Married Woman (2021)

This Chopped episode dives into retro chaos, starting with an appetizer basket of 60s-style cookies, grape jelly meatballs, peas, and grapefruit soda. The entrée round pushes chefs further with wieneroni casserole, mushrooms, fondue, and salmon competing for coherence. In dessert, melon balls, fudge cake, rocket lollipops, and chips force a strange balance of sweet and salty.

In this 90s themed episode, the appetizer round mixes a lunch kit, sun-dried tomatoes, Chinese chicken salad, and an appletini into a clash of convenience and confusion. Entrées get even stranger with canned pasta, strawberry fruit leather, portobello mushrooms, and flank steak forcing chefs to bridge sweet and savory in questionable ways. Dessert goes fully unhinged with frosted mini cookies, chocolate-covered strawberries, drinkable cereal yogurt, and corn dogs.

This episode leans hard into sustainable, futuristic foods. The appetizer basket pairs squash, Little Neck clams, algae oil, and black ants, testing both creativity and bravery. In the entrée round, ostrich fillet meets sunflowers, fonio, and solar farm honey in a challenge that feels equal parts futuristic and rustic. Dessert closes things out with meatless breakfast sausage, pea protein milk, astronaut peaches, and cacao powder.

Alton Brown delivers ingredients that feel designed to test the chef's limits. The appetizer round mixes bean sprouts, pasture-raised eggs, spinach lasagna, and canned chicken into an awkward start. Entrée turns intense with blood soup, parsnips, venison osso buco, and an M.R.E. Dessert doesn’t let up, featuring livermush pudding, pickled garlic, Bartlett pears, and tawny port.

Alton Brown continues to dish out challenging ingredients in “Alton’s Maniacal Baskets: Part 2.” The appetizer round pairs an English breakfast with chanterelles, raspberry lambic, and the ever-threatening surströmming. Entrée puts chefs to the test with ground beef apple pie, guinea hen legs, cardoons, and salty licorice pulling chefs in opposite directions. For dessert, Alton gives the contestants bagel and lox cake, frozen cherries, mimolette, and chitterlings.

In a live-fire Chopped tournament to show what hot ideas, techniques and flavors chefs bring to the table, the competitors take a walk on the wild side with wild game in every basket. In the appetizer basket, a crispy Korean snack food is a creepy-crawly shocker. The judges wonder what to expect when they chomp down on alligator entrees, and in the dessert round, the two chefs left fighting for a spot in the finale wrestle with a basket that includes wild sandwiches and daring dairy.

Four phenomenal live-fire cooks stand tall, ready to claim the last remaining spot in the tournament's finale. They get lucky with a promise of perfectly porky baskets, but only one chef will take the judges to hog heaven. One of nature's sweetest gifts is a part of the appetizer basket, but it may not be a treat to the competitors. A prized piece of pork seems like a gimme in the entree basket, and as the last two competitors race the clock in the dessert round, the $25,000 grand prize begins to feel within reach. But only one chef will still be in the running after the last cloche is lifted.

Playing with fire is serious business in this "high-steaks" preliminary battle of Chopped's thrilling, flame-filled tournament. The four competitors are excited about the delicious possibilities of a steak-centric meal, but a weird watermelon adds to the challenge in round one. The entree round finds the chefs wondering what to do with a giant slab of meat in just 30 minutes, and the two chefs who make it to the dessert round compete with humility, passion and grilled pizza as they face off for a spot in the finale.

Four talented chefs push themselves to the limit in order to impress the judges and win a spot in the $25,000 live-fire tournament finale. They must make flame-kissed dishes that celebrate the treasures of both land and sea, and the judges want to see them modernize an old concept. In the first basket, strange sushi requires raw talent, and a bowl of cheese could be an unwelcome addition to the entree basket. The two finalists discover what's lurking inside the surf-and-turf dessert basket.

In this fiery tournament finale, four winners return with their sights set on taking the title of Chopped Grand Champion. The baskets contain ingredients reminiscent of the preliminary battle themes: wild game, steaks, surf and turf and pork. The appetizer round has the chefs working with a meat not found in the grocery store. A bucket of something frozen is part of the entree basket puzzle, and the two finalists who make it to the dessert round endeavor to give it their all with corn on the cob and an unconventional cheesecake. Only one chef can score the life-changing grand prize and walk away knowing they triumphed while 15 other skilled chefs went down in flames.

Two diner favorites find a home in the ingredient baskets, and the competitors are challenged to make the most of milkshakes and French fries. First, they must make berry and basil work together in the appetizer round. A city's signature dish is part of the challenge in round two, and a toaster treat meets a fun fry variation in the dessert basket.