History Series / 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 discard one they think they might have too much trouble using. After discarding an ingredient, the chef faces a row of eleven cloches numbered 2 through 12 and rolls two dice. Whatever total they get, 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 ingredient; he wasn't worried because he hunted ducks and knew how to cook the tongues.

* CasinoEpisode: The 2022 "Chopped Casino Royale" tournament. When the basket ingredients are revealed each round, a competitor can keep them all ("standing pat"/"playing these") or like draw poker, discard one they think they might have too much trouble with to use. They then go to a "craps table," choose two dice and roll them. Each round has eleven different ingredients, and whatever is rolled has that cloche revealed to show that new manditory ingredient (even ones better to use, odd ones worse though YMMV if the competitor knows how to work with that ingredient: one hunted ducks and knew how to cook with duck tongues, his "odd ingredient").

* {{Troll}}: [[invoked]]Some of the ingredients that can be covered under {{Squick}} are what fans consider "[[FanNickname Troll Ingredients]]", including durian and cherimoya. Heck, even the fans can troll the contestants bad with the viewer's choice polls.

* BaldOfAwesome: Chris Santos.

** Played straight and subverted in another instance where one chef was trained in Classical French Cuisine and, in his intro video and ConfessionCam moments, came across as arrogant, but was amiable to his fellow chefs backstage, even complimenting another chef on her inventive dish.

* DamnedByFaintPraise: The judged will typically begin with praise for the most successful elements of the dish before moving on to its shortcomings. If the praise lingers on minor elements of the dish, they likely had nothing else good to say about the meal. This was ''especially'' notable in one celebrity edition in which a player [[CompletelyMissingthePoint just cut the ingredients up and put them on a plate]]. the judges pointed out at least he arranged them in an appealing way, but he was naturally eliminated first.

** Chef Alex Guarnaschelli is a woman (although her real name is actually Alexandra).

** 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.

* ConflictBall: The producers of the show have tried to force the contestants to hold it by refusing to put more than one ice cream machine in the kitchen in all the show's many seasons, essentially making the contestants race each other for it or give them ample opportunities to screw each other over by the misuse of it. The editing's sense of disappointment when the chefs ''don't'' fight over it during the dessert round is almost palpable.

* ComicallyMissingThePoint: One episode had a celebrity contestant who took the name of "Chopped" seriously and just... chopped the ingredients into pieces and put them on the plate. He got eliminated first.

** Inverted. If the chef doesn't make exactly four servings (three for the judges and one for display/the Chopping Block) or get all the elements onto the plate on time, the judges may not be able to taste everything (and therefore cannot consider it for judgement). However, if the chef does something {{Squick}}-worthy (usually bleeding into the food), the judges definitely won't eat their food. Ted is usually quick to point out that ''even this'' doesn't guarantee elimination, as such a dish can still be graded on two of the three criteria (plating and creativity), but it leaves the chef dependent on another competitor making a worse mistake.

* EliminationCatchphrase: "You have been chopped."

* ILied: During the dessert round of the 2012 Christmas episode "Chopping in a Winter Wonderland", the male contestant (William) tells the female contestant (Rachel) that he's not planning on making an ice cream dessert, so Rachel starts to preps out her planned ice cream dessert. When Ted tips off Rachel that William is indeed using the ice cream machine (which would cost her valuable time in waiting for her turn), she chews him out in disbelief ("[[PrecisionFStrike I can't believe you're making a fucking ice cream dessert!]]"), to which William simply looks back at her in a SmugSnake fashion. [[spoiler: It doesn't matter in the end, because [[LaserGuidedKarma Rachel ends up winning.]]]]

** And then it crossed over with ''Series/CutthroatKitchen'': its aforementioned EvilCounterpart. In this case, Allen himself was the judge, and the ''Chopped'' basket of "must use" ingredients was used as a ''sabotage''.

* AscendedExtra: Marcus Samuelsson becomes a regular judge after the second ''All-Stars'' tournament. Chuck Hughes became a regular judge in the Canadian iteration after competing in the 3rd ''All-Stars''. Dean [=McDermott=] was the winning contestant for season 2 of ''Rachel vs. Guy'' who became the host of the Canadian version.

** ''Rice''. You can probably count the number of times a competitor served rice that ''wasn't'' undercooked on one hand.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

** A well-known berserk button for all the judges is when the contestants call a dish something other than what it really is. See YouKeepUsingThatWord below.

* CompletelyMissingThePoint: One episode had a celebrity contestant who took the name of "Chopped" seriously and just... chopped the ingredients into pieces and put them on the plate. He got eliminated first.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar:
** Chef Chris Sell, in the episode "Belly Up": "Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks!" This was not bleeped... nor was he bleeped the other times he said it, most likely due to being a British profanity.
** In 2013's "Chopped Champions: Part 1", Chef Sylvain Harribey said "This is all shit!" But [[BilingualBonus he said it in French]], so it wasn't bleeped.

Crossing ''Series/IronChef'' and ''Series/TopChef'', '''''Chopped''''' is a CookingShow competition. Like ''Iron Chef'', the competitors are given secret ingredients they must use; ''Chopped'' gives them a basket containing three or four per course instead of just one. Also like ''Iron Chef'', they have to make an entire meal, but only three courses rather than five. Like ''Series/TopChef's'' "Quickfires", the time limits are short, typically twenty minutes for the appetizer and thirty minutes for the entrée and dessert dishes.

* NonStandardGameOver: Any chef who injures him/herself during a round has to stop working and be checked out by on-set medical personnel. They have the authority to send the chef home immediately if they decide the injury is too severe to continue safely.

** Appetizer rounds being thirty minutes long. This was cut to twenty minutes from Season 2 on.

** The best example of this trope put into play, although no intentional, was through Chef Vinson Petrillo in his debut episode. His appetizer was a near disaster with just "putting all four ingredients on the plate". He was the 2nd worst that round. That made it easier for him to come back in the next two rounds with perfect dishes.