THE SUMMER IS HEATING UP WITH NEW FLAME-FILLED TOURNAMENT "CHOPPED: PLAYING WITH FIRE"

Five-Part Tournament Premieres Tuesday, August 10th at 9pm on Food Network

Catch-Up on Prior Seasons of Chopped in its New Streaming Home on discovery+

NEW YORK- July 7, 2021- If you can't stand the heat, get out of the Chopped kitchen. Ted Allen hosts the new five-part tournament Chopped: Playing with Fire, premiering Tuesday, August 10th at 9pm ET/PT on Food Network. Set at the new tournament kitchen, each episode features four talented chefs showcasing their live-fire techniques and skills over three rounds - appetizer, entrée, and dessert - while using the mandatory basket of mystery ingredients to create delicious meals corresponding with the episodic-themed challenges of wild game, steak, surf and turf, and pork. The competitors must impress a rotating panel of judges with their dishes, including Eric Adjepong, Tiffani Faison, Eduardo Garcia, Alex Guarnaschelli and Chris Santos, to earn a spot in the grand finale for the title of Chopped Grand Champion and win $25,000. Who will come out on top of this fired-up tournament, and who will go down in flames? Fans can also catch up on all the action-packed episodes on discovery+ with new episodes available weekly, plus, re-watch every episode of Chopped to date on its new streaming home.

"There is nothing more delectable and entertaining than cooking over a grill during the summer. And these talented chefs are taking it to the next level - Chopped style - working with some of the most primal ingredients over a live flame in the Chopped kitchen. The stage couldn't be bigger to deliver all the action and emotion in this summertime treat," said Courtney White, President, Food Network and Cooking Channel.

Sixteen up-and-coming stars compete to show what hot ideas, techniques, and flavors they bring to the table. During a preliminary battle, the competitors must use wild game in every basket; in the appetizer round, a Korean snack is a crispy, creepy-crawly shocker. The judges wonder what to expect when they chomp down on alligator entrées, and in the dessert round, the two chefs left fighting for a spot in the finale wrestle with a basket that includes some wild sandwiches and a daring dairy. Other episodes feature the chefs making flame-kissed dishes that celebrate the treasures of both land and sea, as they are tasked with using a strange sushi in the appetizer basket that requires raw talent to deal with; and four chefs are ready to take the judges to hog heaven using a prized piece of pork in their entrée basket. The winners from the four preliminary heats meet in the finale with their sights set on taking the tournament title of Chopped Champion. The appetizer basket has the chefs working with a meat you can't find at the grocery store, while a bucket of something frozen is part of the entrée round puzzle. The two remaining finalists who make it to the dessert round endeavor to give it their all with corn on the cob and a weird cheesecake.

Fans can meet the competing chefs and get a tour of the set at FoodNetwork.com/Chopped. Follow along with the competition on social media using #Chopped and get tips and tricks from the Chopped judges on mastering kitchen tools and appliances, plus find out how to work with some infamously difficult mystery basket ingredients.

Chopped: Playing with Fire is produced by Notional Entertainment.

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