10 Popular Cooking Shows for the Ultimate Foodie
What’s a Foodie?
A foodie is a person with a refined interest in food. They are passionate about what they eat, and they foodies love to eat out. Foodies keep up with the latest food trends. They enjoy learning about new foods from different cultures and trying them out. Other terms for foodies include gourmet, gastronome, and connoisseur. If you’re interested in expanding your knowledge about food or just want a new restaurant to go to, these are the most popular cooking shows to try out.
1. Chef’s Table – Documentary (Netflix)
An Emmy-nominated series, Chef’s Table, is a documentary series with 6 seasons on Netflix. In each episode, the series follows the life of a specific chef. They focus on restaurants from all around the world and follow their stories. The goal of the series is to document the philosophies and dreams of multiple chefs. It follows their struggles to build their restaurants and how they got to where they are today. The awe-inspiring show goes above and beyond to capture cooking talent and discipline across the world.
2. Salt Fat Acid Heat – Explores the science of cooking (Netflix)
Salt Fat Acid Heat follows a chef, Samin Nosrat, on her journey to discover good cooking from around the world. Based on her James-Beard Award-winning book, this documentary series takes you on a trip from Italy to Japan. The show’s central philosophy is that all dishes require salt, fat, acid, and heat to make something great. Any cook has the potential to create a fantastic dish when all of these essential elements are present. Get inspired to make something great with this four-part documentary series now available on Netflix.
3. Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi – Explores diverse cultural influences in American cuisine (Hulu)
Follow Padma Lakshmi on her journey to explore the cultural influences in American cuisine. She focuses on finding the original food that influenced and inspired the American cuisine of today. By interviewing multiple immigrant groups, she shows the audience how traditional dishes continue to be made through younger generations. The show tackles how immigrants shaped the food of our nation and how immigrants were the country’s backbone. One of her episodes follows the story of Oscar Meyer, an immigrant from Germany, who transformed his sausages into hot dogs. Taste the Nation has 10 episodes now available on Hulu
4. Street Food – Documentary about Asian cuisine (Netflix)
From Chef’s Table creators, Street Food: Asia is a documentary series that follows the culture of street food in Asian countries. Similar to other popular cooking shows, Street Food highlights the struggles and perseverance of chefs. The show follows street food vendors in Vietnam, South Korea, Thailand, Japan, and Indonesia. Each episode focuses on two to five street food vendors and documents their lives. Although many of the vendors have faced hardships, they continue to sell their food. In addition to the first season about Asian countries, Street Food’s second season follows street vendors from Latin America. Catch both seasons on Netflix.
5. Cooked – Great for beginners/novice foodies (Netflix)
“We all have powerful memories of being cooked for. That act of love is still within all of us. When we learned to cook is when we became fully human. But we lost touch with our past selves,” said Alex Gibney. Cooked is a series that takes things back to the very basics of cooking. Each episode focuses on an element of cooking that is used to prepare food using human hands, not through big factories and machines. The mini docuseries created by Alex Gibney has four episodes that are available on Netflix for streaming.
6. Worth It – Fun travel show exploring foods at various price points (Hulu)
The Worth It series started as a web series on the Buzzfeed YouTube channel. As the show gained a larger audience, it was licensed to stream on Hulu. The series follows Steven Lim and Andrew Ilnyckyj on their quest to find what food item is “worth it” at its given price point. Each episode highlights one food item located at three different price points in three different restaurants. At the end of the episode, Steven and Andrew vote on which food item was their “worth it” winner. The series is fun, light-hearted, and has 6 seasons worth of content.
7. Handcrafted – Expert chefs create intricate dishes (Amazon Prime)
Handcrafted is an 8 episode tutorial series dedicated to showing viewers how food is made in detail. Each episode focuses on a particular type of food or skill that professional food makers use. The first four episodes highlight how butchers cut into different types of meat. From cows to lambs, the show doesn’t hold back to show its viewers how food is made to be brought to your dinner table. The show also highlights how different types of pasta and sourdough bread are made. Watch the series on Amazon Prime to learn more about handcrafted food.
8. New York Times Cooking – (YouTube)
Another YouTube production, the NYT Cooking YouTube channel is an official New York Times production. The channel contains general recipes, holiday-themed recipes, and even kitchen tours. The channel interviews prominent chefs about their creations and other celebrities about their new favorite food trends. NYT Cooking also gives advice for food lifestyle changes. With a wide variety of content to choose from, the channel has something for any new foodie to sink their teeth into.
9. Zumbo’s Just Desserts – Fun Reality/Competitive Series (Netflix)
Zumbo’s Just Desserts is an Australian cooking competition show. Adriano Zumbo, a patissier, makes 12 bakers compete in difficult dessert challenges each week. The show is hosted by Zumbo and Rachel Koo. Similar to the Great British Bake-Off, Zumbo’s Just Desserts is all light-hearted fun with a competitive edge. Contestants in the show come from careers unrelated to cooking from technical writers to car test drivers. Available on Netflix, the series has two seasons with 22 episodes total.
10. Tasty 101 – Fun tutorials you can follow along with (Hulu)
Another Buzzfeed original series on this list, Tasty 101 is dedicated to giving “the most instruction possible in the least amount of time,” Ilnyckyj said. The producer, Andrew Ilnychyj, is also one of the co-hosts in the Worth It series. Most Tasty 101 videos are short recipe videos with little to no voice commentary. They are simple tutorial videos showing recipes from dinner options to delicious desserts. You can find the series on YouTube or Hulu.
Check Out The Popular Cooking Shows List Above!
If you’re interested in learning something new about food, these popular cooking shows are perfect for you. Learning about food from different cultures can inspire you to try something new in the kitchen or visit a new restaurant. Watch some of the other shows to find recipes to try and make something new for yourself. Laugh out loud at some of the funnier shows on this list. Even though times may seem difficult now, turn on one of these popular cooking shows to learn something new and have a fun time learning. This cooking shows list is a great starting place to nurture your foodie interests.