From amateur bakers to celebrity chefs, cooking shows are one of the most entertaining and awe-inspiring types of shows on TV. Not only are they filled with delicious food, but they also give you insights into the food industry, show you the cultural significance of different dishes from across the globe and showcase the art of cooking. No matter the reason why you turn on a cooking show, the food content is unmatched. Whether you like watching TV while you cook or torturing yourself when you’re hungry... Netflix has a show to satisfy your cravings.

Key Ingredients To Create a Perfect Cooking Show

Creating a perfect cooking show involves a blend of key ingredients that captivate audiences. From notable recipes and thrilling cooking competitions to charming cooking series and engaging travel doc series, these elements transform culinary dreams into reality, delivering both entertainment and inspiration for food lovers everywhere.

• Engaging Format: Whether a documentary exploring food culture or a classic kitchen cooking show, an engaging format captures viewers with dynamic storytelling, mouthwatering visuals, and relatable hosts, making it both educational and entertaining.
• Guest Judges and Competitions: Including guest judges and cutthroat competitions with amateur cooks or professionals creates tension and unpredictability, making each episode thrilling as participants face challenges to impress judges and win top honors.
• Personality-Led Travel Adventures: Cooking shows featuring charming travel adventures with well-known chefs exploring global cuisines add depth by immersing viewers in diverse food cultures and offering fresh culinary experiences beyond the kitchen.
• Famous Names in Cuisine: Having renowned chefs or culinary experts on the show elevates the credibility and excitement. Esteemed judges bring expertise, while celebrity chefs captivate audiences with their personality, fame, and cooking prowess.
• Stress-Free Recipes and Fun Atmosphere: Shows with a laid-back, fun environment featuring stress-free recipes appeal to viewers looking for accessible, enjoyable content. They provide useful tips and easy-to-follow instructions for everyday cooking.

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What Are The Best Netflix Cooking Shows To Watch Right Now?

• Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat
• Nadina’s Time To Eat
• Is It Cake?
• Somebody Feed Phil
• Street Food: Best Look Into Local Cuisines
• Million Pound Menu
• Chef's Table
• Zumbo's Just Desserts
• Flavorful Origins
• Cooked With Cannabis
• Ugly delicious
• Rotten
• Dinner Time With David Chang
• The Chef Show 
• Taco Chronicles 
• Bake Squad
• The Great British Baking Show
• Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend
• Sugar Rush 
• The American Barbecue Showdown

1. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat

Samin Nosrat is best known as a renowned chef and food writer and has been making waves in the culinary world since the release of her acclaimed 2016 book Salt Fat Acid Heat. A follow-up to her previous work, it explores how salt affects our bodies and diets, and how it can change the way we eat. She takes us inside the mind of a true master chef. In four episodes that span four continents, Nosrat dives into the science behind her favorite ingredients — fat, acid, heat, and salt—and reveals how these fundamental building blocks affect the way we taste, smell, think, feel, and live.

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2. Nadiya's Time To Eat

If you're a fan of the popular show The Great British Bake Off, then you are no doubt a fan of professional baker Nadiya Hussain. The season six winner, Hussain was a smash hit from the very beginning but it was the baking of her very own wedding cake as her final showstopper that bagged her the ultimate prize. Following her success on the show, she has become an established professional chef, appeared on cooking shows alongside famous Chefs, and has even released her own cookbook titled Nadiya Bakes.

Now, she has her very own original series, which follows Nadiya as she travels around the UK teaching people how to cook healthy meals. She gives tips and tricks along the way, and her guests are always happy to help. Each episode features a different theme like "filling up", "making friends", and " street food". There are even a few cooking competitions thrown into the mix.

3. Is It Cake?

Is It Cake? on Netflix is a hilarious baking competition hosted by Mikey Day, where talented bakers test their skills in the wild field of cake design. Each episode features bakers creating hyper-realistic edible cakes that resemble everyday objects, leaving a panel of celebrity judges to guess which is cake and which isn’t.

With clever designs and impressive artistry, the bakers push the boundaries of cake-making, all while competing for cash prizes. The show blends comedy and creativity, making it a delightful watch for fans of baking and fun challenges!

4. Somebody Feed Phil

In 2017, comedian/writer/director Phil Rosenthal took his talents to the road. He traveled around the globe eating everything from street food to fine dining and documented it all on YouTube. The result is Somebody Feed Phil, a six-episode foodie tour de force hosted by the man himself. This unique journey takes him to some of the best places in the world to eat and drink, including Singapore, Mexico City, New Orleans, Paris, London, Seoul, Tokyo, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and many more.

Rosenthal visits restaurants where people cook and serve food in creative ways. He eats traditional dishes like kimchi tacos and chilaquiles, and he tries out foods that are completely foreign to him, such as deep-fried insects and ice cream sandwiches. He even goes inside homes and kitchens to see some authentic family cooking. You're sure to have a good laugh watching this show!

5. Street Food: Best Look Into Local Cuisines

Street Food is an American television series produced by Travel Channel about street foods around the world, hosted by actor Anthony Bourdain. Each episode features one city and focuses on the local cuisine, including traditional dishes, modern adaptations, and cultural aspects. While many food and television shows tend to overlook the lives of street food sellers, this program takes an inside look at what happens behind the scenes and how these people prepare the food that is so popular throughout their country.

6. Million Pound Menu

Million Pound Menu has an idea very similar to the TV Show Shark Tank. In America, people invest in businesses that they think might make money. People who own restaurants give their business ideas to Million Pound Menu to see if they can get investment capital. During these events, known as "pop-ups", the owners of the restaurants try to convince potential investors that their restaurant would make a profit. This show is fun and entertaining to watch. Plus, it shows us the reality behind the scenes of running a restaurant, something we rarely get to see.

7. Chef's Table

This one is for the artistic foodie in all of us. The Netflix original Chef’s Table, directed by David Gelb, follows the success of different accomplished Chefs and how their innovative food concepts have changed the cooking world. What really makes this show great is how beautifully filmed and directed it is.

It’s impossible to watch Chef’s Table and not be hungry after experiencing the beautiful handmade creations from the many international Chefs presented. This docu-series, headed by the immense culinary knowledge of director David Gelb, helps us discover the world’s most ambitious Chefs and their journeys to where they are. On top of the incredible stories and personalities of the different gastronomic geniuses, Chef’s Table really showcases something we all forget cooking can be: art.

8. Zumbo's Just Desserts

If you have a sweet tooth, this one's for you! A crazy, wacky Willy Wonka-esque show that showcases the magic and awe of pastries making. Zumbo’s Just Desserts is the ultimate reality cooking competition where Australian pastry chef competitors fight for the prize of $100,000 and the chance to have their creations featured in Zumbo’s shop.

The competitors create beautiful desserts that put your mother's cookies to shame. The best part is the elimination round. The two lowest-scoring Chefs must recreate an incredibly difficult dessert made by Zumbo himself which goes as far as being motorized or levitating. The care and precision each baker puts into their desserts, whether it be a beautiful cake or a stunning pastry, makes this a high-stakes competition that’s hard to look away from.

9. Flavorful Origins

Divided into 20 easy-to-digest episodes, Flavorful Origins is a docudrama that invites viewers inside the coastal Chaoshan province in China. Each 12-minute episode focuses on a single food, covering dishes such as marinated crab, hotpot, seaweed, and hú tì uáng mó ngàn — a type of noodle soup. In each scene, the show follows the culinary journey of one chef as he prepares the dish, from the initial preparation to the final presentation.

Unlike American-produced food shows, which often exalt individuals, Flavorful Origins is about food, food, food — the entire process from beginning to end. The show begins with a brief introduction to the ingredient or recipe, followed by a sequence of images depicting chefs stirring, steaming, grilling, chopping, slicing, and sautéing. These visuals are interspersed with scenes showing the same chefs preparing the dish. The show concludes with a few minutes of footage of the finished product being served to guests. Throughout it all, there is no narration; instead, the camera simply captures what happens.

10. Cooked With Cannabis

With the legalization of cannabis in certain states in the USA and the synergy between marijuana and food, a show that brings these two elements together is bound to be a success! In the competition, each contestant has to create a unique three-course menu and every dish needs to incorporate marijuana in some fashion. This show is loved by stoners and cannabis enthusiasts but also by foodies of all kinds since it opens up a window into what the future could look like once different countries legalize cannabis. The show is creative and is sure to crack you up!

11. Ugly Delicious

There is something to be admired about a show that presents the different ways cities prepare a popular dish and how one meal can be appreciated by many different cultures. I was skeptical to add Ugly Delicious to my list as I personally find the most annoying. A great concept executed beautifully but one that could use someone with a bit more charm and charisma to carry the show along. However, what it aims to do is introduce people to different food cultures, it does well - Ugly Delicious makes you hungry and also, makes you think.

Explore popular cuisines from around the world

12. Rotten

This six-part docuseries explores the history of human civilization through the lens of food. In each episode, renowned American writer, author, and activist Michael Pollan travels to different parts of the world to learn about local cuisines and discover why certain foods were once considered sacred and others taboo. In the first episode "Cooked", Pollan meets farmers in Morocco to understand how milling wheat with a family farmer changed the way Americans eat bread.

He visits a bakery in Mumbai where bakers use ancient techniques to make Indian flatbread called roti and learns why some cultures view fermentation as a form of worship. Then, he heads to a farm in the heart of Italy's wine region to meet winemakers whose families have been growing grapes there since Roman times. While traveling around the globe, Pollan discovers that while people around the world have similar dietary needs, what we choose to eat depends entirely on where we live.

13. Dinner Time Live with David Chang

Dinner Time Live with David Chang on Netflix showcases renowned chef David Chang cooking live for celebrity guests. This interactive show blends cooking instruction with casual, informal chats as Chang prepares the perfect dish while engaging in lively conversations. With each episode, viewers get an inside look at both his culinary process and fun guest interactions. Part cooking instructional, part entertainment, this show is the dream for foodies and fans of Chang’s unique, laid-back style. Watch David Chang bring his kitchen to life in a whole new way!

14. The Chef Show

The Chef Show is a cross-country food journey and documentary series inspired by Jon Favreau's culinary training for the film Chef. In this vibrant cooking show, Favreau teams up with renowned chef Roy Choi to travel across America, exploring food cultures, hot spots, and diverse cooking methods. They engage with professional chefs, celebrity chefs, and unsung heroes of the culinary world, showcasing their unique skills and stories.

From yummy food to international cuisine, the series celebrates the artistry of minority chefs and everyday culinary experts, offering a delicious and heartwarming journey through America's kitchens and beyond.

15. Taco Chronicles 

Taco Chronicles is a mouthwatering Netflix documentary that dives deep into the world of tacos, exploring the rich history and diverse types of this beloved menu staple. Each episode spotlights a different variety of taco, from al pastor to barbacoa, while paying tribute to the unsung chefs and street vendors who perfect these iconic dishes.

The series celebrates the cultural significance and culinary artistry behind different types of tacos, offering viewers a flavorful journey through one of Mexico's most cherished foods. A must-watch for taco lovers and food enthusiasts alike!

16. Bake Squad

Bake Squad is a neon-lit baking competition on Netflix, led by renowned pastry chef Christina Tosi. In each episode, Tosi’s team of four hilarious, highly skilled bakers compete to create extravagant cakes and desserts for deserving clients celebrating special occasions.

The bakers push their creativity to the limits, crafting jaw-dropping sweet masterpieces while bringing humor and fun to the kitchen. With stunning designs and imaginative flavors, the show highlights their artistic abilities and competitive spirit, all under the expert guidance of Christina Tosi. Bake Squad is the ultimate treat for fans of over-the-top desserts and lighthearted competition.

17. The Great British Baking Show

The Great British Baking Show is a delightful and charming cooking series that has captured the hearts of audiences around the world. Hosted by the charismatic duo of Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith, the show makes baking accessible to everyone, showcasing a wide range of creations from cookies to cakes.

Each week, amateur bakers compete in a series of challenges designed to test their skills and creativity, all while surrounded by the picturesque English countryside. The supportive atmosphere and camaraderie among contestants, combined with the expert guidance of judges like Paul Hollywood, make this series both entertaining and inspiring for aspiring bakers.

18. Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend

Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend elevates culinary competition in a massive cooking arena where challenger chefs compete against legendary Iron Chefs. Hosted by Alton Brown, this exhilarating series showcases classically trained chefs who bring their skills and passion to the forefront, creating stunning dishes that add life to food.

Contestants must rely on their instinctual cooking abilities, facing off in intense challenges that test their creativity and resilience. With high stakes and thrilling culinary showdowns, this show captures the essence of cooking as both an art and a fierce competition. Prepare for a culinary showdown like no other!

19. Sugar Rush

Sugar Rush on Netflix is an exciting baking competition featuring teams of bakers racing against the clock to create delectable desserts. Each episode presents hilarious bakers who showcase their creativity and skills while crafting stunning cakes, pastries, and other sweet treats.

With various themed challenges, contestants face off in a vibrant, high-energy environment, aiming to impress the esteemed judges with their culinary creations. The combination of humor, camaraderie, and mouthwatering desserts makes Sugar Rush a delightful watch for both baking enthusiasts and fans of competitive cooking shows alike!

20. The American Barbecue Showdown

The American Barbecue Showdown is a thrilling competition that brings together passionate pitmasters and amateur grillers pursuing their barbecue dreams. Contestants face a series of grilling challenges, showcasing their skills and creativity with mouthwatering meats and sides.

With each round, competitors aim to impress the esteemed judges, who evaluate their flavorful creations based on taste, presentation, and technique. The stakes are high as participants vie for the coveted prize money and the title of barbecue champion. 

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