Worst Cooks in America episode 1 recap: Real worst cooks of bootcamp

The Food Network show Worst Cooks in America premiered a new season of reality star Heroes vs Villains on January 5, 2025. The show features a variety of famous names, including dating show alums Bartise Bowden from Love is Blind and The Bachelor and Bachelor in Paradise's Corinne Olympios. How are our dating shows doing in the kitchen?

Challenge: Create your signature dish

The cast splits up to individually create their signature dish and as expected, they don't exactly know their way around the kitchen. Corinne starts the antics by "almost chopping off her finger," needing a whopping one band-aid, and New York almost burns the house down forgetting her waffle in the iron. Even Food Network pro chef Antonia isn't safe from kitchen blunders. She accidentally leaves bread on the stove and manages to set the bag on fire.

Hero Frankie Grande and villain Corrine Olympios won this week's challenge, creating their version of their pro chef's seafood dish and butchering a fish semi-successfully. No one was poisoned during the making of this episode, as far as we know.

On the chopping block: Cheryl Burke and Rachel Reilly

The heroes' team dish that was deemed worst of the day was Cheryl Burke's, and villain Rachel Reilly's chocolate turkey lasagna got honors as well. Both receive a second chance to make a shrimp dish as the team captains, Chef Antonia and Chef Jeff, announce Cheryl as the loser. In a surprise twist, no one will be eliminated this week. Chef Antonia chooses to lead the villain team, while Jeff Mauro takes on the heroes.

Worst Cooks in America: Heroes vs Villains cast

This season, the teams are made up of reality TV and pop culture stars. The villains team includes Bachelor Nation alum Corinne Olympios, The Traitors and Celebrity Big Brother's Rachel Reilly, Love is Blind and Perfect Match's Bartise Bowden, I Love New York and House of Villains HBIC Tiffany Pollard (our reality TV villain of the year) and The Challenge legend and House of Villains season 2 runner up Wes Bergmann.

The heroes are Slay's Trinity the Tuck aka Ryan A. Taylor, Olympian Adam Rippon, The Masked Singer star Sebastian Bach of Skid Row, Broadway star and Big Brother cast member Frankie Grande and Dancing with the Stars pro Cheryl Burke.

The show hosts are professional chefs Antonia Lofaso (Beat Bobby Flay, The Great Food Truck Race, Top Chef, Iron Chef America) and Jeff Mauro (Food Network Star, The Kitchen, Sandwich King, $24 in 24).

The show features teams of chefs, competing to learn cooking skills from the pros. Each week, the competitors put their spin on a themed dish their team experts teach them. Their dishes are tasted and rated, with the bottom two dishes from each team being nominated for a head-to-head battle.

One of the two losers in the week's competition is eliminated. The winner receives $25,000 towards their charity of choice, with eliminated contestants getting $2,500 towards their charity.