America’s Test Kitchen Launches New TV Show

America’s Test Kitchen: The Next Generation is a competition series to find the next on-screen talent to join the America’s Test Kitchen team. Contestants will work inside the ATK studio kitchens, undergoing intense culinary challenges in the job interview of a lifetime. The last cook standing will earn a starring role on America’s Test Kitchen.

The executive producers are David Nussbaum, Jenn Van Persaud, Teri Weideman, Mark Levine, David Lonner, Mark Itkin, Madeline Langlieb, and Jack Bishop, who gave us the inside scoop.

With the explosion of streaming platforms we saw an opportunity to make a new type of culinary competition show that reflects our unique approach to food and cooking—something educational and entertaining. We hope current fans of ATK will tune in and that new fans will discover us. The Next Generation will continue the ATK tradition of empowering home cooks with reliable information they can put to use in their own kitchen. The format will be different from our current show, but our mission remains the same: We help curious cooks become confident cooks.

Yes! In fact, we are filming season 23 of America’s Test Kitchen right now. Julia, Bridget, and the rest of the cast are on set doing their thing. Twenty-six new episodes will start airing on public television stations in January. And big news: We have 18 brand-new episodes of Cook’s Country ready for this September. (In previous years, we’ve made just 13 episodes.) To celebrate our 15th anniversary on public television, Cook’s Country has a new show open, new on-the-road reporting pieces, and new graphics, along with more failproof recipes and trustworthy product reviews.

More than 700 professional chefs and home cooks applied. The talent pool is absolutely stunning. We’re busy reviewing tapes and interviewing potential candidates. The show will start off with 10 contestants, with elimination challenges along the way. The last cook in the kitchen gets to join the ATK cast.

We want a great cook as well as an effective educator and communicator. We want someone with a strong culinary point of view and knowledge base. We want someone who loves to teach and understands the realities of home cooking. A good sense of humor, please, and willingness to spend hours debating the pros and cons of gas grills versus charcoal grills or thin-crust pizza versus Sicilian pies. In short, we want someone who can’t stop thinking about and talking about cooking.

Some of your favorite cast members from America’s Test Kitchen will be helping to decide who has the right stuff. We certainly know what it takes to succeed at ATK! Stay tuned for more details on this fun aspect of the show. [Editor's note: Since this article was originally published, the judges have been announced!]

Like our existing TV shows, The Next Generation is all about home cooking. No restaurant wars here. Each episode (and we expect this first season to have ten hour-long episodes) will feature relatable cooking challenges based on home cooking. Home cooking is about how to take everyday ingredients and make them taste great. The show will also have lots of presentation challenges. Yes, everyone at ATK is a good cook, but we like to think we’re teachers first and foremost. We want to find a new cast member who can explain the hows and whys of cooking. So, the cameras will be rolling as contestants try to cook and teach at the same time.

The show will air on Friday, December 9, 2022, and you can watch on Amazon’s Freevee platform—completely for free!