Host award-winning chef Gordon Ramsay, along with fellow judges restaurateur Joe Bastianich and acclaimed chef Graham Elliot return for Season Five, putting the latest group of contestants through a series of challenging elimination rounds and turning one home cook into a culinary master.
The contestants must prepare a unique dish in the first mystery box challenge -- which features ingredients typically used in desserts; in the next round, the contestants prepare a classic American dish.
A mystery-box challenge has the Top 16 chefs preparing dishes using canned foods. The winner will work with former "MasterChef" champion Luca Manfe and "MasterChef Junior" winner Alexander Weiss to select a specialty dish for the elimination round.
The contestants must put aside their difference as they pair up to create a surf-and-turf dish; the challenge losers face a pressure test featuring spring rolls.
The remaining 14 cooks work in two sets of teams at a busy, iconic diner in Los Angeles; the members of the losing team must make a three-layer red velvet cake during a pressure test.
The cooks prepare romantic dinners for couples celebrating anniversaries; Ramsay's wife joins him for dinner; the losing team create their own truffle recipes for a box of chocolates.
For the first time, the contestants get to choose between two mystery boxes: one filled with high-end ingredients and one containing ordinary items; the winner of the challenge chooses which type of stuffed pasta the remaining cooks make.
The home cooks split into two teams and create menus of healthy football game concessions for an entire stadium; the cooks on the losing team must create three unique prawn dishes in a pressure test.
The remaining contestants receive hometown encouragement as they prepare savory apple dishes; while the challenge winner is safe from elimination, the other contestants form teams of two and make a variety of potstickers.
The Top 3 contestants create dishes for a panel of judges from all 50 U.S. states. The winner earns an automatic spot in the Top 2, while the other two chefs face a pressure test involving desserts.