How Do They Keep The Dishes At The Right Temperature On Masterchef Australia?

When it comes to the world of MasterChef Australia, viewers ask the same questions every season: What happens to the leftover food? Do they get recipes? And a simple but essential question — how in the heck do they keep the dishes warm (or cold!) on MasterChef Australia?!

While you wouldn't be amiss in thinking that it's some kind of sorcery, it turns out that the MasterChef kitchen is a well-oiled machine when it comes to keeping meals at the perfect temperature.

There have been many rumours swirling over the years, including that the meals the judges receive are cold by the time they eat them, or even that extra plates are made where the judges secretly try dishes as soon as they're finished and have another dish that's 'for show'.

Alas, it seems like both of these theories are wrong, with Sumeet Saigal, a contestant on the 2024 season of MasterChef Australia telling us how everything goes down behind the scenes when it comes to tasting. Turns out, it's far simpler than we thought!

"What happens is that obviously we cook our food and it was always stored at the right temperature," Sumeet Saigal tells Refinery29 Australia. "So if you have a sauce that needs to be kept warm, they have food warmers behind the scenes where it's kept at the right temperature. If it's meats, it's kept at the right temperature."

Saigal also tells us that the same goes for any cold dishes like ice cream so there are no melting mishaps. "If it's ice cream, it sits in the freezer before you get to the stage of tasting," she explains.

While tastings in the MasterChef kitchen may look effortless, it can sometimes take hours to film all of the judge's tastings, making the right temperature crucial to the plating-up experience. "When you make your final dish before you go to the front of the room to actually taste it, all the foods are stored at the right temperature that it requires," Saigal says.

Saigal also explains that there is a specific 'food team' that asks all the right questions when it comes to storing the contestant's dishes before the judges taste them. "You get asked questions by the food team," she says. "Like, where do you want this to go? Is it room temperature? Does it need to be kept in the warmer? And then we request for ice cream to be kept in the freezer or sauce to be kept in the warmer, for example."

After years of theorising, it turns out that the behind-the-scenes reality is much simpler than we thought, utilising the power of freezers and ovens! "I remember wondering the same thing when I was a viewer, wondering what they do," Saigal laughs. "It's such a well-oiled machine."