There’s nothing more satisfying than watching other people cook. Here are the best cooking shows on Netflix in 2018 to make your day tastier.
Netflix has been rolling out more and more cooking-related shows, and there’s a big enough variety to keep anyone happy! Although most are focused on baking, there are still a few available on Netflix in 2018 that touch on other types of cooking.
‘Sugar Rush’
This show takes everything you love about bake-offs and puts it into each one of its self-contained episodes, where four teams of bakers compete to see who will win $10,000. In my opinion, it’s the best baking show out there, because you don’t have to wait until the season ends to have a winner. Instead, each episode is a brand new competition, with a brand new theme, and three challenges for the bakers to beat: cupcakes, sweets and cakes.
The judges are also pretty great, with a new guest judge featured in each episode, and the diversity of backgrounds of the different bakers make getting to know them — and seeing how incredibly creative they are! — fun every episode.
‘Nailed It!’
If you’re a baking skeptic, Nailed It! is exactly the show to appeal to your lack of confidence as a baker. In this competition — also with brand-new contestants every episode! — amateur bakers (and honestly, that’s rather generous… some of them have clearly never baked anything in their life) compete to replicate some work of art in the baking world.
In a cupcake round and a cake round, they’ll try to not screw it up too much. But of course it always comes out hilariously wrong, and neither you nor the judges will be able to stop laughing at the results.
‘The Big Family Cooking Showdown’
A twist on your classic cooking competition, The Big Family Cooking Showdown returns to the place where all good cooking is born: the family kitchen. This show has two families prepare their best recipes in a competition against each other, where family dynamic and family cooking secrets are everything.
While two of the three rounds in each episode take place in a studio kitchen, the other takes place in the family’s home as they cook in their own environment, giving you a glimpse at their family culture. What’s nice is that you get to see a great variety of cultures and cuisines represented in this show, with a type of cooking that’s usually tragically underappreciated in the world of chef’s cuisine.
‘The Great British Baking Show’
(Or, The Great British Bake-Off)
Hearkening back to the very essence of traditional baking competitions, The Great British Baking Show does a great job of introducing you to every contestant and making you root for them and the tasty treats they make.
With each episode, the contestants face new challenges — some open-ended, some extremely detailed — that might get them eliminated, in a colorful setting with incredible challenges and very friendly contestants. Their delicious work will definitely make you hungry.
‘Zumbo’s Just Desserts’
If you liked judge Zumbo in Sugar Rush, you might enjoy his own show from Australia, which is like your traditional baking competition, but with a twist — the desserts are innovative, based on Zumbo’s own best works in revolutionary baking.
While it can be a bit hard to get into at first with the sheer number of contestants involved, the sweets you see on Zumbo’s Just Desserts might change the way you look at food, and inspire you to be a bit more creative in the kitchen.
Honorable Mention: ‘The Hairy Bikers’ Asian Adventure’
While not exactly a cooking show, and crossing over into documentary territory, this show is worth watching for the mix of food, culture and laughs, with genuine explanations of how delicious Asian recipes are made, and the role they play in the culture they come from.
With two British hairy bikers with a love for culture and everything food, travelling through different countries in Asia in this docu-series is great fun, and give you a craving for Asian food at least once per episode.