Aarón Sánchez (chef)

Aarón Sánchez (born February 12, 1976) is a Mexican-American celebrity chef, restaurateur, cookbook author, television personality host, entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is the executive head chef and part-owner of the Mexican restaurant Johnny Sánchez in New Orleans.

He co-starred on Food Network's hit series Chopped and Chopped Jr. and hosted Cooking Channel's Emmy-nominated Taco Trip. He has appeared on Iron Chef America, and is one of the few chefs whose battles have ended in a draw, tying with Masaharu Morimoto in "Battle Black Bass" in season 2. He was also a contestant on The Next Iron Chef. He is the author of two cookbooks, and had a memoir released October 1, 2019. He launched the Aarón Sánchez Scholarship Fund to empower aspiring chefs from the Latin community to follow their dreams and attend culinary school. In the spring of 2017, he became a full-time judge co-hosting FOX's hit reality-TV culinary competition series MasterChef for Season 8, which aired over the summer of 2017 alongside Gordon Ramsay, Joe Bastianich and Christina Tosi after previously guest-starring in season 7 as a guest judge until his departure from the show after Season 14. He has also joined the judging panel of MasterChef Junior since its 7th season, which debuted in March 2019, after guest-starring in season 5, which debuted early 2017.