History Series / Chopped

** The implication that producers would sometimes remove ingredients from the pantry that are usually there. One episode has the sugar bin disappear in the dessert round and another removes all but two eggs from the pantry. This would became a regular thing in ''Series/CutthroatKitchen''.

* CordonBleughChef: Averted. The required mystery ingredients make it seem that this is inevitable, but the chefs use the fully-stocked pantry and fridge to avoid this problem. Usually.
** However, one particular viewer's choice special invoked this with the basket ingredients being cheese doodles, durians, lime jello, and imitation crab meat. The judges flat out ''admit'' that this there was no way to make anything appetizing out of ''that''.

** And then it crossed over with ''Series/CutthroatKitchen'': its aforementioned EvilCounterpart. In this case, Allen himself was the judge, and host Alton Brown auctioned off the ''Chopped'' mystery ingredient basket as a sabotage.

* CasinoEpisode:

*** The 2023 "Chopped Casino Royale XL" tournament changes the rules a bit. To swap an ingredient, this time the chefs must use a roulette wheel to bet on red or black. Win your bet and you can pick one of six good ingredients hidden under cloches; lose and you must pick from six bad ones. In the finale, a different chef in each round is given a chance to take one pull on a three-reel slot machine if they want. The reels are loaded with dollar signs and cleavers, which respectively raise and lower the jackpot by $5,000 for each one that comes up.
*** In the Dessert round of the 2023 tournament, chefs who lose their roulette bet are given a choice: either accept the bad ingredient and start cooking, or take one pull on the slot machine. If you get at least two matching symbols of any type, you can trade in the bad ingredient for a good one; if not, [[FromBadToWorse you have to swap it for an absolutely HORRID ingredient]]. [[spoiler: One chef loses her slots pull, and must use calf eyeballs. She gets lucky to use it in a not-too-distasteful dessert, and wins her heat because her last opponent had more issues with ALL his courses, not just dessert.]]

* AllOrNothing: Winner gets $10,000. Losers get nothing. (Except on the charity episodes.)

** In 2013's "Chopped Champions: Part 1", Chef Sylvain Harribey said "This is all shit!" But [[BilingualBonus he said it in French]]

* INeedAFreakingDrink: One incredibly nervous contestant ends the dessert round this way, and is nice enough to pour her opponent a shot as well.

* LoopholeAbuse: In Part 3 of the Napa Grill Masters competition dessert round, one of the required ingredients was pistachios. Both chefs realized they didn't have time to unshell them all so they used already shelled pistachios from the pantry, thereby fulfilling their requirement of needing to have pistachios on their plates.

* RealityShow

** The 2023 "Chopped Casino Royale XL" tournament changes the rules a bit. To swap an ingredient, this time the chefs must use a roulette wheel to bet on red or black. Win your bet and you can pick one of several good ingredients hidden under cloches; lose and you must take a bad one.
*** FromBadToWorse: In the Dessert round, chefs who lose their roulette bet are given a choice: either accept the bad ingredient and start cooking, or take one pull on a three-reel slot machine. If you get at least two matching symbols, you can trade in the bad ingredient for a good one; if not, you have to swap it for the absolute WORST ingredient in the whole kitchen. [[spoiler: One chef loses her slots pull, and must use calf eyeballs. She gets lucky to use it in a not-too-distasteful dessert, and wins her heat because her last opponent had more issues with ALL his courses, not just dessert.]]

** The 2023 "Chopped Casino Royale XL" tournament changes the rules a bit. To swap an ingredient, this time the chefs must use a roulette wheel to bet on red or black. Win your bet and you can choose a good replacement ingredient, lose it and you must take a bad one.
*** FromBadToWorse: In the Dessert round, chefs who get a bad ingredient on the dice roll are given a choice: either accept it and start cooking, or take one pull on a three-reel slot machine. If you get at least two matching symbols, you can trade in the bad ingredient for a good one; if not, you have to swap it for the absolute WORST ingredient in the whole kitchen. [[spoiler: One chef loses her slots pull, and must use calf eyeballs. She gets lucky to use it in a not-too-distasteful dessert, and wins her heat because her last opponent had more issues with ALL his courses, not just dessert.]]

*** FromBadToWorse: The Dessert round can become this for chefs who get a bad ingredient on the dice roll. Either accept it and start cooking, or take one pull on a three-reel slot machine. If you get at least two matching symbols, you can trade in the bad ingredient for a good one; if not, you have to swap it for the absolute WORST ingredient in the whole kitchen. [[spoiler: One chef loses her slots pull, and must use calf eyeballs. She gets lucky to use it in a not-too-distasteful dessert, and wins her heat because her last opponent had more issues with ALL his courses, not just dessert.]]

** Sometimes, if an expected ingredient takes a long time to prepare, they are given extra time. In contrast, during rounds where they are given a ''shorter'' time limit, every basket ingredient is ''specifically'' chosen to not take a long time to prepare, this way the round won't end up unwinnable.
* ArtisticLicenseBiology: No, Chris Coombs, rattlesnake meat does not contain venom, especially since the rattlesnake's head is absent in the basket. Although he may have confused it with eel, whose ''blood'' is toxic and ''must'' be drained.

*** DoubleOrNothing: The Dessert round can become this for chefs who get a bad ingredient on the dice roll. Either accept it and start cooking, or take one pull on a three-reel slot machine. If you get at least two matching symbols, you can trade in the bad ingredient for a good one; if not, you have to swap it for the absolute WORST ingredient in the whole kitchen. [[spoiler: One chef loses her slots pull, and must use calf eyeballs. She gets lucky to use it in a not-too-distasteful dessert, and wins her heat because her last opponent had more issues with ALL his courses, not just dessert.]]

** The 2023 "Chopped Casino Royale XL" tournament also qualifies. To swap an ingredient, this time they must use a roulette wheel to bet on red or black. Win your bet and you can choose a good replacement ingredient, lose it and you must take a bad one.

** Four butchers that also had cooking skills had their own episode. The main rules: 1) You had no appetizers/desserts, just meaty main courses. 2) Since you also had to Butcher your own meat for your dishes, you were given a 45 minute time limit to help accomplish this (instead of 20-30 minutes).

** The 2023 "Chopped Casino Royale XXL" tournament also qualifies. To swap an ingredient, this time they must use a roulette wheel to bet on red or black. Win your bet and you can choose a favorable ingredient, lose it and you must chose an unfavorable one.
*** DoubleOrNothing: The "dessert round" is a figurative one if you get an unfavorable ingredient. You can either take your unfavorable ingredient or play a one-payline slot machine. If you play the slots, you must get TWO matching symbols on the payline to win. If you win, you can THEN take a favorable ingredient instead. If you LOSE, you must use the WORST ingredient the Chopped folks could think of. [[spoiler: One chef loses her slots pull, and must use calf eyeballs. She gets lucky to use it in a not-too-distasteful dessert, and wins her heat because her last opponent had more issues with ALL his courses, not just dessert.]]

** Ted Allen loves his puns.

** Ingredients that none of the chefs (and possibly none of the viewers) have even ''heard'' of make their way to the baskets sometimes, like karela and dulse. In the case of an ingredient called violet mustard, not even the judges, who are highly accomplished chefs, had heard of it before. This makes ''Chopped'' in theory also an EdutainmentShow.

* TemptingFate: In one episode, "Better Saffron Than Sorry," a chef commented after the first round that "At least they didn't make us use lamb testicles." Guess what was in the next basket? [[spoiler: However, he knew more-or-less what to do with them -- because [[TaughtByTelevision he'd]] ''[[TaughtByTelevision seen]]'' [[TaughtByTelevision them used on a previous episode]] of ''Chopped''!]]

As of 2020, ''Chopped'' also now has TWO spin-off/sister series. The first is called "Chopped Junior," which is the same as the original show, except all the contestants are children (aged 9 to 15) and each of the three rounds are thirty minutes long. After the 2019 "Chopped Sweets Showdown" $50,000 Tournament, "Chopped Sweets" aired in 2020 with ''Chopped'' judge Scott Connant (who also hosted ''Best Bakers in America'') hosting.

* HalloweenEpisode: Once a year starting in 2010, and with at least one of the mystery ingredients having something to do with Halloween. The chefs were instructed to put that theme into their dishes. The set was decorated in skull candles and other [[BuffySpeak Halloweeny]] things, and the judges wore masks to start the show.

The show is part of Creator/FoodNetwork's primetime block of programming and has run since January 2009. About five episodes at a time are available on [[http://www.hulu.com/chopped Hulu]].

* FailureIsTheOnlyOption: Occurs occasionally if two specific ingredients show up in the basket together. The judges will frequently criticize any attempt to "segment" the ingredients into being separate on the plate rather than all combined harmoniously into a single dish, and anyone that's [[GenreSavvy seen the show]] (or just heard this in a previous round) will know this. Except the basket has, more than once, included fish and cheese. So if you make two separate things on the same plate, you could get chopped. If you put the fish and cheese together, you could get chopped.

* CasinoEpisode: The 2022 "Chopped Casino Royale" tournament. When the basket ingredients are revealed in each round, a chef can either keep them all or get rid of one they think they might have too much trouble using, similar to discarding in a hand of draw poker. Any chef who dumps an ingredient moves to a gaming table and has to roll two dice. Eleven cloches are set up, numbered 2 through 12; whatever total the chef gets, that cloche is lifted to reveal a new mystery ingredient they have to use, with even numbers giving much more desirable ingredients. In one case, a chef wound up getting duck tongues as his replacement, but he wasn't worried because he hunted ducks and knew how to cook the tongues.
** In the finale, the grand prize starts at $25,000. After the ingredient swaps in each round, each chef is offered a chance to roll the dice and try to add to it if they want. The total of each roll is multiplied by $1,000 and added to the prize (for even numbers) or subtracted from it (for odd numbers).

* DifficultySpike: ''Chopped Champions'', ''Chopped All-Stars'', and ''Chopped Redemption''. The difficulty is not so much the ingredients (some of the episodes have more normal-ish ingredients), but with the judging. Very justified with ''Champions'' and ''Redemption'' because they've appeared before and therefore the judges expect more from the contestants. On ''Champions'' and any finals in a tournament, a very minor mistake is often enough to chop a chef.

* PositiveDiscrimination:
** The contestants are usually subjected to the strangest, oddest, most ill-fitting ingredients the producers can find. But not in the New Orleans Chef episode! The baskets were packed with softballs like andouille sausage and catfish, with very minor challenges in the way of seasoning agents. It was basically an excuse to have them ConfessionCam about how strong they were for making it through Hurricane Katrina for an hour without having to worry too much about odd ingredients.
** The same thing happened in the Father's Day episode 2014. There was not one ingredient that was out of the blue that the cooks couldn't deal with. [[DoubleStandard This is in contrast with the Mother's Day episodes where the difficulty is on par with a regular episode.]]
** In an ''All-Stars'' episode, Alex Guarneschelli slipped up slightly and came very close to admitting that she and the other judges had decided before the competition even started that Anne Burrel was going to win, because "It's time."

* YouKeepUsingThatWord / InsistentTerminology: The contestants may call a dish X but the components may not necessarily fit. It's a big BerserkButton for the judges. So much so that more than a few have been chopped based at least loosely on this issue.
** In the {{Webisode}}s, Geoffrey keeps calling his sandwiches "Philly Cheesesteaks" when a Philly Cheesesteak has a very specific definition.

* CasinoEpisode: The 2022 "Chopped Casino Royale" tournament. When the basket ingredients are revealed in each round, a chef can either keep them all or get rid of one they think they might have too much trouble using, similar to discarding in a hand of draw poker. Any chef who dumps an ingredient moves to a gaming table and has to roll two dice. Eleven cloches are set up, numbered 2 through 12; whatever total the chef gets, that cloche is lifted to reveal a new mystery ingredient they have to use. In one case, a chef wound up getting duck tongues as his replacement, but he wasn't worried because he hunted ducks and knew how to cook the tongues.

** The ice cream maker is one of the most difficult pieces of equipment to use in the kitchen, because it ''must'' be cleaned between uses. During rounds in which the contestants are required to produce an ice cream component, the show provides additional ice cream makers so the contestants don't have to waste time cleaning the machine or waiting for each other to finish using it.

** The rules say you have to transform the ingredients. AintNoRule saying you have to use ''the entire'' ingredient! For example, if you are given a pre-made dish, you're technically incorporating it even if you're only taking the filling out of a quesadilla.

* CasinoEpisode: The 2022 "Chopped Casino Royale" tournament. When the basket ingredients are revealed in each round, a chef can either keep them all or get rid one they think they might have too much trouble using, similar to discarding in a hand of draw poker. Any chef who dumps an ingredient moves to a gaming table and has to roll two dice. Eleven cloches are set up, numbered 2 through 12; whatever total the chef gets, that cloche is lifted to reveal a new mystery ingredient they have to use. In one case, a chef wound up getting duck tongues as his replacement; he wasn't worried because he hunted ducks and knew how to cook the tongues.