MasterChef Jr went under the sea in episode 2 and some junior chefs struggled and others definitely delivered

It was “Under the Sea” night on MasterChef Junior. And that meant our young chefs were going to be cooking with seafood. However, this was a bit of a mystery box challenge, as each chef got a mystery seafood ingredient in a chest at their cooking station. Not only that, but they also had to use seaweed in their dish.

Every chef got something different in their chest, with ingredients such as prawns, lobster, Mahi Mahi, and halibut under the lids. And once they learned exactly which seafood they would be using, they then got to go into the pantry and not only pull the ingredients they would use to create their dish, but they also had to choose from a wide range of seaweeds to complete the dish.

This was an overall interesting MasterChef Junior challenge. We got to see just how talented so many of these young cooks are, while also being reminded that they are young. They don’t necessarily have the experience of an older chef who has been doing this for a long time. Seafood can be a real challenge, and unfortunately, for a few of these cooks, cooking the seafood definitely was a struggle.

MasterChef Junior continues to bring the joy of cooking to life with a young cast that embraces every challenge that comes their way

One young chef, Asher, actually had a connection to the MasterChef family before becoming a contestant on Season 9. That is because his father actually tried out for the judges in season eight of the original MasterChef. And while he didn’t make it into his season’s top 20, Asher was actually there at the time. Of course, that was a long time ago, and he was quite young. But it was a beautiful reminder that some of these chefs come from families that already love to cook, fueling their fire in the kitchen.

It may not come as any surprise that after Asher had his moment early on in the episode, he actually ended up in the top three with his halibut dish. And, he made his father proud when he ended up winning the episode.

This was a great challenge overall and we can’t wait to see how these young chefs handle the challenges coming their way this season, because they definitely handled their seafood challenge beautifully.