Nine home cooks enter the kitchen and meet their mentors; the cooks must prepare a dish using the contents of a lunch box; the mentors must cook to impress guest judge Carla Hall.
The home cooks meet their new guest professors, Debi Mazar and Aaron Sanchez; the cooks compete in a tag team challenge cooking dishes that combine the styles of where they are from.
Duff Goldman serves as guest professor for a set of art-inspired challenges; the mentors face off in two battles featuring desserts in different colors.
Scott Conant and Geoffrey Zakarian serve as guest professors; the mentors cook a gourmet dish featuring a popular snack food; the cooks try to avoid elimination as they create a gourmet dish using pretzels.
Guest professor Adam Richman tests the cooks on science; the chefs must dissect iconic dishes and use those ingredients in a new way; the mentors switch teams to test how well they can train students; dishes featuring the four elements.
Professor Richard Blais and Professor Haylie Duff test the cooks in the subject of literature; dishes inspired by a genre of literature; dishes with assigned nouns, adjectives and verbs.
In the first round, the mentors must make an updated version of meatloaf; the home cooks revisit their first challenge cooking with lunch box ingredients.
The contestants cook for a spot on a mentor's team; Bobby Flay, Alex Guarnaschelli, Curtis Stone and Michael Symon will each have two home cooks to guide through the competition; guest judge Simon Majumdar.
The eight remaining home cooks must reinvent famous food pairings; Iron Chef Geoffrey Zakarian judges the results.
Things turn personal when the mentors take each other on in head-to-head team battles for a crucial advantage; with guest judge Elizabeth Falkner.
Five home cooks remain as the mentors battle head-to-head to bring back an eliminated contestant of their choice; guest Donatella Arpaia judges the results.
Chef Robert Irvine steps in to fill the mentors' shoes, coaching the home cooks as they are challenged to cook with canned meats; the mentors become the judges during a blind taste test.
The four remaining home cooks face off in three of the toughest challenges yet; "Chopped" judge Marc Murphy lends a helping hand.
The cooks must make it through three intense rounds of culinary challenges, all representing a meal in the life of a typical home cook; the contestants cook side-by-side with their world-class mentor.