YMMV / Chopped

• Anvilicious: Occasionally, the themed episodes can get into this territory — especially episodes like Wasted! where Ted and the judges were remarking at every opportunity that "40% of food purchased for home use is wasted" (and all the baskets contained trimmings, rinds, and other often-discarded items).
• Elimination Houdini:
  • Jason Zukas and Lauren Gerrie. What's very ironic is that both of them made it to the dessert round of the finals in their respective Chopped Champions tournament before getting eliminated by someone who is just better than them.
    • Jason Zukas in the first Champions was this trope because he was considered less skilled than the other contestants, but somehow has always managed to surprise the judges with his creations. Judge Alex Guarnaschelli being particularly fond of him helped him get to the finals.
    • Lauren Gerrie was in that one episode with Cornish hens. It can be argued that she didn't do spectacularly well enough to deserve to be in the Champions tournament. She barely escaped getting chopped in the appetizer round, both of her competitors royally messed up the Cornish hens in the entrée round, and her opponent during the dessert round served cherimoya seeds. However, in the second Champions, she Took a Level in Badass by managing to get to the very end of the competition, and also when she produced a cake which Alex Guarnaschelli declared "the best dessert she ever ate on the show."
  • In Chopped: Ultimate Champions, chef Giorgio Rapicavoli is the Houdini, but only in the finale. Unlike the other two examples, he is an excellent chef. It's just that he made two amateur mistakes in two rounds. Had this been a regular Chopped: Champions finale, he definitely would've gone home in the appetizer round, as Scott Conant said. The only reason he stayed despite the two mistakes was because both Keith Young made a bad BBQ sauce and fried rice, and because Laila Ali made some questionable decisions regarding her plating.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The Chopped Star Power special with award-winning actors became this when Alan Thicke was chopped in the first round - it turned out to be one of his last on-camera appearances, as he died shortly after taping.
• Iron Woobie: Keith Young, in all three appearances. He lost his wife just as he was about to compete in Chopped. In his first appearance, he's clearly still shell-shocked. Despite this, he managed to win twice.
• Memetic Mutation: "Chef [insert name here], you've been chopped. Judges?"
  • Doubles as a Funny Moment.
• Retroactive Recognition: Several Hell's Kitchen competitors have competed here before appearing on the latter show, such as Will, Nick, Jon, Hassan, Robyn, Christine, Roshni, and Andy.
• The Scrappy:
  • Of the judges, Alex Guarnaschelli was traditionally (and consistently) seen this way by a lot of people who viewed her as being kind of snobbish sometimes. Subverted like crazy on Chopped Junior, however, as the child contestants (especially the girls) view her as a role model, and she has started to loosen up and be more friendly (despite still having the usual deadpan facial expression). Frequently Scott Conant was this in the earlier seasons with his overly harsh criticisms, but he got better on the later seasons when he laid off some of the harshness. Contrast Conant with Aarón Sanchez who becomes more of a Smug Snake in the later seasons as well as being seen as a hypocrite when the subject is on Mexican food and spice.
  • On Season 2 of Chopped All-Stars, Penny Davidi was just as much of an egomaniac as she was on Season 7 of The Next Food Network Star. Though she did acknowledge that she got a bad reputation as a result of NFNS, at the end of her appearance, hardly anyone agreed that she is any better than before even though she keeps saying in the Confession Cam "This is not who I am."
    • She bragged that Michael Symon and Marcus Samuelson "are intimidated by me," and when Symon gets eliminated on a technicality, she crows "The bragging rights! I beat an Iron Chef!" Uh, no, Penny, you didn't. He lost that round because he forgot to plate some okra, so unless you somehow mind-controlled him into not plating it, then no, you didn't "beat an Iron Chef." In the next round, however, Penny ends up being a victim of her own arrogance as usual...
    • Oh and the best part? When Penny gets eliminated because she put so much saffron that it rendered the dish difficult to eat to the judges, and Judge Amanda Freitag delivers the decision, Penny whines to the Confession Cam: "Who's really the saffron expert? Me, or Amanda?!" She then vows that this won't stop her from conquering Food Network...
    • Not only that, but she made two major errors in that round: leaving bonito skin on the fish and putting too much saffron.
    • Her parting words become Hilarious in Hindsight since she ends up competing in yet another show modeled after Chopped but more befitting of her cutthroat personality. Karma hit her quite hard on that show and she didn't win that one.
  • Special mention goes to Malik Fall, who cooked West African style. He bragged about his food being Critic-Proof quite openly. So when he got some very legitimate criticism from the judges, he flipped out. He didn't take the judges' criticism to heart and he got chopped on round two. On the walk of shame, he refused to go down the stairs and went to change into civilian clothes before storming out. This led Ted to declare him an Unperson, which shows how much his behavior was not tolerated by anyone on Chopped.
  • One chef openly admitted that the prize money wasn't even the reason he wanted to win; he wanted the bragging rights, especially against his ex-girlfriend, who also happened to have competed on the show previously. He also stated that he was supposed to be getting married, but rather than use the money from the competition to buy a wedding ring, he decides he wanted to go to Las Vegas. He won.
  • One chef firmly became this in an episode where another of the competitors was his ex-girlfriend. While she spoke well of him, he spent a lot of time during the confessionals talking badly of her. Both of them managed to make it to the third round, where the ex-boyfriend produced what the judges said was one of, if not the worst dessert ever produced in the Chopped kitchen, and yet despite this, the judges still gave the victory to him. To say fans of the show were outraged by this is an understatement.
  • The one contestant from the Leftovers episode that complained the entire time about having to use the premade ingredients provided. As stated on the main page, many viewers were incensed at her for how snobbish she presented herself.
  • Chef Rory from "Viewer's Choice" is extremely unpopular with fans. Most fans looked past her whining in the first round due to having what is widely considered the hardest basket in the show's history. The second round though, she whined even more despite having an easier basket, insulted viewers saying they have no right to pick the ingredients and didn't know what they were doing ^note  the difficult combos proved otherwise, got incredibly defensive over valid criticism, and even tried to blame the format of the episode. Most fans were relieved she was chopped the second round when it looked like a Nice Guy who had a very good cause for the money looked like he was going home after forgetting a basket ingredient.
  • There is always a Scrappy contestant who returns in Redemption episodes. Same goes for Championship episodes and they almost always get chopped in the end.
  • Martha Stewart quickly became this for fans who found "Martha Stewart rules" to be too gimmicky, against the spirit of Chopped, and found her to overall be an overly-rude Cousin Oliver added to the show in a weak attempt to shake things up in later seasons.
  • For Chopped: Canada, host Dean McDermott is the scrappy. He has a boring personality, he's a horrible Pungeon Master on the levels of Justin Willman, and when the show first aired, he was right in the middle of a controversy regarding his wife Tori Spelling. Oh, and there's also the fact that he's no Ted Allen.
    • Averted, however, with the host that succeeded him, Brad Smith, who's both much less grating and also easy on the eyes.
• Shocking Elimination:
  • In the 2015 All-Stars Tournament, Madison Cowan was thought to be a shoo-in for the finals. Unfortunately, he made two critical errors in the entree round. Even the judges, who were on his side and expected great things from him, were sad they had to eliminate him.
  • Likewise, in the second All-Stars Tournament Finals, Michael Symon was expected to be a shoe-in for the dessert round due to his Iron Chef status, along with Marcus Samuelsson. He made a critical error of leaving an ingredient out in the appetizer round, getting him chopped.
• Spiritual Successor: Although they run concurrently, Cutthroat Kitchen is essentially a spiritual spin-off of Chopped.
• Squick:
  • Tossing a salad with an open wound.
  • In general, any violation of basic food safety (preparing food with an open wound, cross-contamination, and so on).
  • Somewhat regularly, at least one chef will react to a required ingredient in this fashion; see It Tastes Like Feet. Somewhat less frequently, one of the judges will also react to a required ingredient this way.
  • Sometimes the baskets seem geared towards this, although later seasons stepped away from this.
  • A "Viewer's Choice" episode let the mystery ingredients be chosen by a viewer poll. From this, we learn that Chopped's viewers are downright evil. Take the ingredients for the appetizer round, lime Jello, cheese doodles, imitation crab meat, and durians. All parties involved suffer greatly throughout the entire round and the judges even more or less concede that those ingredients are nigh impossible to make an appetizing dish out of.
    • For those of you who don't know, durians are enormous, thorny fruits from southeast Asia that, by the competitors' and judges' descriptions, have the smell and consistency of rotting garbage. The taste can actually be quite pleasant, similar to cheesecake, but the smell can overwhelm the taste if it's not treated properly..
  • One basket included a cinnamon roll as a required ingredient. One of the chefs decided to try and make it savory by soaking it in beef blood. The judges pointed out how gross that was and he very narrowly avoided elimination.
• Tear Jerker:
  • The last few moments of the first two $50,000 Chopped Championship grand finales. Even the usually stone-faced judges were bawling.
  • Keith Young's appearances are always tearjerkers. His wife died just as he was about to compete on Chopped for the first time, leaving his children behind. His eldest daughter dropped out of college to run his wife's dance studio. Every time his dead wife is mentioned, the mood always darkens. When he finally got chopped, Scott Conant admitted that, because of Keith's story, he started to hug his wife harder lest he lose her. You may cry out now.
  • An episode featuring 10- and 11-year-old competitors had one girl whose father had been in the hospital for 6 months since falling off a ladder and hitting his head. At one point, she mentioned hoping she would win so that she could use the money to bring him home. She did win... and then during the credits, we see that the episode was dedicated in loving memory to her father.
• That One Ingredient/Piece of Equipment:
  • Rice. To prepare it well, you need to boil it for way longer than you have to compete. Almost everyone who has attempted to prepare rice has failed because they are forced to put it out underdone. They also do not have a rice cooker.
  • Cornish Hens due to the fact they take at least 30 minutes.
    • For that matter, any ingredient that takes a long time to cook. Most contestants just cut pieces off to cook quicker.
  • The Ice Cream Machine in the dessert round for several reasons:
    • You overchurn it, and it becomes way too hard. Underchurn it, and it becomes runny. Prepare it too soon or too late? It ends up runny.
    • It's time-consuming. Sure, you can do it in a few minutes if you know what you're doing, but if your competitor gets there first, you'd best not use it at all. This is because Ice Cream Makers must be cleaned between use (unless you're using the same flavour) because otherwise, the flavour from the last couple batches remain. Fortunately, a second or even third ice cream machine is provided whenever a round flat out requires this.
  • Ingredients that need to be peeled (such as pistachios) which are time-consuming to transform in a reasonable amount of time. However, Ain't No Rule saying you can't just peel a few, then grab the rest of the pistachios from the pantry.

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