Season 12

Sixteen of the worst cooks in America, including a sportscaster, a feisty granny and a professional balloon artist, arrive at boot camp with dreams of putting their kitchen nightmares behind them. Mentors Anne Burrell and Tyler Florence need to assess the level of disaster they're facing, so they ask the recruits to make their own specialty dishes -- and the results are worse than the chefs could have imagined! For the first main dish challenge, the mentors teach the recruits how to make the most important meal of the day, and the recruit on each team with the worst breakfast dish is sent home.

Mentors Anne Burrell and Tyler Florence introduce a game in which the recruits meet some magical and mysterious kitchen gadgets. The recruits become fast friends with the most important tool of all, a knife, to make fajitas while demonstrating their knife skills. Then boot camp transforms into a fish market, and the recruits get up close and personal with the catch of the day as they learn to fillet and prepare fish. The recruits who don't get along with their new friends end up sleeping with the fishes.

The Worst Cooks boot camp is transformed into a game show, Family Food, and the teams of recruits go head-to-head in trivia rounds and culinary tasks that test their knowledge. For the main dish challenge, they're finally ready to put down roots in the kitchen and learn about cooking vegetables. Some will make dishes that taste fresh from the garden, but some recruits will leave mentors Anne Burrell and Tyler Florence missing the meat.

It’s game day at Worst Cooks boot camp, and the recruits must make varsity-worthy nachos inspired by different flavor profiles. They get into the game day spirit by competing in a game of cornhole to determine what flavor profile they will use. For the main dish challenge, mentors Anne Burrell and Tyler Florence teach their recruits how to make irresistible, stuffed burgers. The recruits step up to the plate and throw darts at a map to determine which of the 50 states will inspire their own craveable creations. The recruits who score touchdowns with their burgers will continue on, but those who fumble in the kitchen will be cut from their teams.

The recruits are halfway through boot camp and they’re learning how to create new dishes from common leftover ingredients. They play a taste and describe game, “What’s in My Mouth? Leftovers Edition,” and then Anne Burrell and Tyler Florence leave the recruits alone for the first time to make pizza from scratch. Some pizzas impress the Chefs in the blind taste test, but others get boxed out.

On Valentine's Day, a prancing cupid finds his way into the kitchen and the recruits test their ability to whip cream and create molten chocolate cakes; for the main dish challenge, they must make a swoon-worthy, multi-component dessert.

Each team gets an out-of-order recipe and the recruits must work together to figure out how to unscramble it. Then Anne Burrell and Tyler Florence tell the recruits they are being left alone in boot camp, but secretly watch every move from a remote command post. For the main dish challenge, the recruits learn the ugly truth of sausage making. The tasting is a potluck dinner, so their sausages must impress both the Chefs and their fellow recruits.

The remaining recruits take charge during “Remote Control Chef” by tasting a dish put in front of them and describing it so Tyler Florence and Anne Burrell can recreate it. For the main dish challenge, recruits attempt the difficult task of making fresh pasta from scratch with a little help from Italian nonnas who have years of pasta-making experience. The top recruits earn a spot in the semi-finals.

The final four recruits learn the art of showing off; they learn high-flying bartending tricks and make happy-hour cocktails with bar snacks; for the main dish challenge, the recruits must cook a dish and perform a flashy tableside demonstration.

The final two recruits face off in the ultimate challenge -- cooking a 3-course, restaurant quality meal for a panel of culinary experts. Anne Burrell and Tyler Florence coach their recruits from the sidelines, but it all comes down to the skills that the recruits have learned over the past 10 weeks. Judges Paulette Goto, Jordan Andino and Michael Chernow taste the recruits' dishes in a blind taste test and determine the winner of the $25,000 prize.