All-Star Academy

- Season 2

(2016)

In the Season 2 premiere, the nine competing home cooks are put to the test, by preparing a dish using the contents of a lunch box. The lowest-ranked contestant is eliminated, and the remaining eight choose their mentors, who include Robert Irvine.

The home cooks compete in a tag-team challenge, making dishes that combine the styles of their geographical backgrounds. Later, the elimination test features ingredients from the popular cuisines of Thailand, Italy and Mexico.

The mentors face off in two art-inspired dessert challenges, presided over by Duff Goldman.

The group test is a numbers game, when Katie Lee and Jeff Mauro (The Kitchen (2014)) appear as the guest "math" professors. The challenge for the home cooks is to create an appetizer trio, featuring one main ingredient.

Guest professors Scott Conant and Geoffrey Zakarian judge the mentors this round, with each mentor creating a gourmet dish using snack food. The winning mentor gets the chance to add an eliminated chef to their team.

A science lesson brings Adam Richman to the academy to dissect some iconic dishes and challenge the home cooks to use those ingredients in a new way.

In the penultimate episode before the Season 2 finale, the home cooks participate in a literature-inspired "Win and You're In" game to determine who's going to compete for the grand prize of $50,000.

A history lesson is presented to the class in the Season 2 finale, which finds the mentors updating the humble meatloaf to gain an advantage for their home cooks.