One of the perks of being a MasterChef Australia judge is getting to sample delicious dishes — and Andy Allen has revealed just how many he tastes over the course of a single season.
The number of contestants that compete on a MasterChef Australia season usually ranges between 18 and 22. However, MasterChef Australia 2025: Back To Win had 24 hopefuls vying for the trophy
Of course, even if all of the contestants’ dishes don’t make it into the episode, the judges must still try them, meaning that Andy, Poh Ling Yeow, Sofia Levin and Jean-Christophe Novelli tried a whopping 24 dishes each in just the premiere episode of MasterChef Australia 2025.
On top of that, the cooking show has one of the longest schedules out of any Australian reality show. The application form states that all contestants must be available for filming for up to 30 weeks. So, the judges are tasting food for the better part of a year.
In an interview with Chattr, Andy broke down the staggering number of dishes he tries in a single season.
“We’ll do some math here. I think in the first week of filming [MasterChef Australia 2025], I tried over 100 dishes. Multiply that by what? How many weeks do you reckon we film? I reckon 25 weeks. So we’re talking about 2500 dishes just in one season.”
But, Andy doesn’t have any complaints about it.
“I think that’s the beauty of my job, I just get to try so much good food. It’s not the beauty of my waistline, because it’s a lot of food and it’s a constant battle not to absolutely devour anything that’s put in front of me,” he laughed.
Andy thinks the extended filming period is what sets MasterChef apart
Andy believes that part of the beauty of MasterChef is the extended filming period because contestants must consistently impress the judges rather than get lucky with a couple of dishes they know well.
However, he added that the long commitment means that the cooking show is not just a talent competition, but also a mental test.
“It’s 80% mental game, it’s such a long process, you sacrifice a lot. It’s five and a half months of filming. It’s super intense,” he told Chattr.
“In a week, you can do so many different challenges that you need to bend your mind towards being successful. And, for me, that’s just a mental game.”
Andy, who won MasterChef in 2012, said that he and contestant-turned-judge Poh Ling Yeow can see when a contestant is struggling to keep their head in the game.
“That’s one of the things where Poh and I are really good at noticing that, when someone’s just not there mentally, it can be so obvious to to us, because we’ve been through it before.”
“There’s rare occasions, whether it be kind of like Nat [Thaipun] from last year or Billie [McKay], where the best cook on day one, goes out and lifts the trophy. I think more often than not, it’s a surprise, and I feel like that surprise element is down to how mentally tough whoever the winner is.”
MasterChef Australia airs on Sunday at 7pm and Monday – Wednesday at 7:30pm on Channel 10 and 10Play.
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