6 Tips From a ‘Chopped’ Judge That Will Make You Feel Like You Actually Know What You’re Doing in the Kitchen

If you’ve ever wondered why your pasta sauce at home never quite tastes like it does at a restaurant, the answer might be simpler than you think. 

On All on the Table, host Katie Lee sits down with her longtime friend Scott Conant—the chef behind what might be the most famous spaghetti pomodoro in New York City, 17-year Chopped judge, and now the founder of Martone Street tomato sauce. 

After 40 years of cooking, here’s what he wants you to know:

☐ Finish your tomato sauce with a little butter

“There’s certain acidic edges that you get with a tomato sauce,” Conant explains. “When you add just a little spoonful of butter and toss it in there…it just smooths it out and makes it a little more palatable. It invites you to grab another bite.” 

In Italian it’s called monticatura, which sounds fancy but really just means tossing a knob of butter into your sauce right at the end. Lee confirms the difference is real. “That’s one of those things that a restaurant does but people don’t normally do at home.”

☐ Set everything up before you turn on the stove

Conant is dead serious about mise en place. “You got to set everything up in front of you before you get started,” he insists. “Mise en place is the key.” He points out that the biggest challenge at home is that you don’t have a team prepping things for you, so if you skip this step you end up running around the kitchen with something burning while you’re frantically trying to chop parsley. “It’s meant to be fun. It’s meant to be easy.” Laying everything out first is how you keep it that way.

☐ Wash your dishes as you go

Conant admits this one is partly fueled by his own anxiety, but he stands by it. “I get really wrapped up in the whole process and so I’m washing as I’m going,” he shares. “It makes my life much easier.” You likely don’t have a prep team or a dishwasher on standby the way a restaurant does. So either you clean as you cook or you finish a great meal and immediately want to cry looking at your kitchen. Pick your fighter.

☐ Cook your scrambled eggs on the lowest flame possible

“Really low flame, couple pats of butter, eggs inside, whisked well with a fork, not too much, not aerated,” Conant explains. “I like small curds like with a wooden spoon.” He credits Bobby Flay with making the best scrambled eggs he’s ever had, and says the technique is the same: low and slow, never rushed. If your scrambled eggs have been coming out rubbery, the heat is almost certainly too high.

☐ Stop thinking of tomato sauce as just a pasta sauce

Conant uses his as a base for chicken cacciatore, steak pizzaiola, cioppino, and more. “A lot of times people think that this tomato sauce is just a pasta sauce,” he points out. “[But] using this sauce as a base for other things…that’s always a pro-move” Not everybody wants pasta every single night, but a good tomato sauce can anchor dozens of completely different meals if you stop thinking of it as a one-trick ingredient.

☐ When in doubt, make spaghetti aglio e olio

Conant’s 16-year-old came home with friends on New Year’s Eve and he made them all spaghetti aglio e olio at 2:30 in the morning. Spaghetti, garlic, olive oil—done. “That’s the go-to,” he says. “All the kids want spaghetti aglio e olio.” It’s the ultimate proof that the best cooking doesn’t require a grocery run or a complicated recipe. Sometimes it’s just good olive oil, garlic, pasta, and someone who gives enough of a damn to make it at 2:30 a.m.

Listen to the full episode on All on the Table with Katie Lee, available wherever you listen to podcasts.

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