What is an Assistant Chef?

The assistant chef supports the head chef in the day-to-day operations of a commercial kitchen, be it in a restaurant, a catering service, a cafeteria, or any other foodservice establishment.

The tasks of an assistant chef may vary, but in general, they are responsible for managing inventory, preparing ingredients, maintaining the cleanliness of workstations, and assisting chefs with menu development. They are also often responsible for helping ensure the compliance of the kitchen and its workers with food safety laws and workplace safety policies.

Contrary to popular belief, you don't need formal culinary education to become a chef. With enough experience in the kitchen and at least a high school diploma, you may be able to qualify for most assistant chef positions in various foodservice establishments. Nevertheless, a culinary school can still put you in an advantageous position.

As an assistant chef, you have the potential of earning around $41,000 a year, on average. When it comes to job outlook, you may be able to attain the role of the head chef with enough experience and expertise.

What Does an Assistant Chef Do

There are certain skills that many assistant chefs have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed business skills, communication skills and creativity.

Learn more about what an Assistant Chef does

How To Become an Assistant Chef

If you're interested in becoming an assistant chef, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 30.8% of assistant chefs have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 1.6% of assistant chefs have master's degrees. Even though some assistant chefs have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.

Top Assistant Chef Jobs Near You

Assistant Chef Career Paths

In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of chef you might progress to a role such as executive chef eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title director of food and beverage.

Assistant Chef

Average Salary for an Assistant Chef

Assistant Chefs in America make an average salary of $37,670 per year or $18 per hour. The top 10 percent makes over $63,000 per year, while the bottom 10 percent under $22,000 per year.
Average Assistant Chef Salary
$37,670 Yearly
$18.11 hourly
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Roles and Types of Assistant Chef

There are several types of assistant chef, including:

Chef

Role:

MMM, do you smell that? Working as a chef comes with some good-smelling perks, especially if you're good at what you do. Chefs are in charge of preparing food for establishments where food is served, typically restaurants.

The schedule of a chef varies widely depending on where you're cooking. Sometimes they work early mornings, late evenings, weekends and even holidays. Yes, people still want to eat your delicious food on Christmas

  • Average Salary: $46,824
  • Degree: Associate Degree

Sous Chef

Role:

Chefs are often considered artists, who create culinary masterpieces pleasing to vision and palate alike. Sous chefs are there at every step of the process, assisting the head chef, in a professionally run kitchen, in making the magic happen.

They contribute to creating the menu, making sure every necessary ingredient is in stock and fresh, supervise sanitation, and do everything in their power to reach the expected quality standard of the meals.

Defying stereotypical gender roles, or perhaps adhering to less obvious ones, the sous chef position is primarily filled by men, especially in high-end kitchens. With all the long hours, heat, and a high-pressure working environment, prejudice against women has them framed as not being physically and emotionally strong enough to work in kitchens, and receive fewer opportunities to hold high-status jobs as cooks.

Restaurants behind the scenes are apparently not just the site for exquisite food preparation but prove to be an excellent field for institutionalized sexism as well. Go sous chefettes, it is high time to change this demographic!

  • Average Salary: $48,716
  • Degree: Associate Degree

Head Cook

Role:

A Head Cook, aka the chef, is responsible for running a kitchen, usually in a high-end establishment. They delegate tasks and oversee the work of everyone involved in food preparation, making sure that the result is nothing but exquisite delicacies. They come up with new recipes, create the menu, and make sure the necessary ingredients are always in stock.

Head cooks are deeply passionate about cooking. They live and die for tasty food and know a lot about other countries' culinary cultures. They consider their profession art, rather than anything else, and just like a poet has a favorite pen, you will recognize an authentic head cook by the fact that he/she favors one knife over all others.

Not that salaries matter to a real artist; just for your information, head cooks in the U.S. make an average of $48,098 per year.

  • Average Salary: $44,412
  • Degree: High School Diploma
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States With The Most Assistant Chef Jobs

Mouse over a state to see the number of active assistant chef jobs in each state. The darker areas on the map show where assistant chefs earn the highest salaries across all 50 states.

Average Salary: Job Openings:

Number Of Assistant Chef Jobs By State

RankStateNumber of JobsAverage Salary
1Florida348$39,651
2Texas322$40,538
3California321$50,831
4New York231$54,730
5Georgia182$38,551
6Virginia162$50,279
7North Carolina158$38,910
8Arizona152$34,555
9Massachusetts132$57,052
10Pennsylvania124$51,669
11Ohio111$40,117
12Illinois111$41,592
13Michigan107$45,470
14Colorado107$42,103
15Minnesota93$40,031
16Tennessee92$28,439
17Indiana88$39,327
18New Jersey86$67,998
19South Carolina75$36,787
20Maryland73$41,598
21Washington71$42,077
22Utah67$25,658
23Missouri61$34,308
24Nevada60$35,336
25Wisconsin52$36,461
26Alaska50$45,880
27Alabama47$36,703
28Connecticut43$52,559
29Oregon39$35,210
30Montana36$30,779
31New Hampshire32$60,038
32Oklahoma32$33,754
33Mississippi28$34,430
34Louisiana27$29,512
35Kentucky26$33,806
36Iowa18$32,122
37Idaho16$23,200
38Wyoming15$36,882
39Maine14$46,710
40North Dakota14$37,029
41Rhode Island12$57,540
42Hawaii12$53,116
43West Virginia12$34,957
44Kansas12$28,179
45Delaware9$44,579
46Nebraska9$32,227
47Arkansas9$30,614
48Vermont8$37,782
49South Dakota8$34,111
50New Mexico4$35,053

Assistant Chef Education

Assistant Chef Majors

Culinary Arts
36.0 %
Business
14.2 %
Hospitality Management
8.0 %

Assistant Chef Degrees

Associate

32.1 %

Bachelors

30.8 %

High School Diploma

23.8 %

Top Colleges for Assistant Chefs

1. Stanford University

Stanford, CA • Private

In-State Tuition

$51,354

Enrollment

7,083

2. Boston University

Boston, MA • Private

In-State Tuition

$53,948

Enrollment

17,238

3. Drexel University

Philadelphia, PA • Private

In-State Tuition

$53,244

Enrollment

15,557

4. University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, PA • Private

In-State Tuition

$55,584

Enrollment

10,764

5. Cornell University

Ithaca, NY • Private

In-State Tuition

$55,188

Enrollment

15,105

6. Northwestern University

Evanston, IL • Private

In-State Tuition

$54,568

Enrollment

8,451

7. SUNY College of Technology at Alfred

Alfred, NY • Private

In-State Tuition

$8,570

Enrollment

3,721

8. SUNY College of Technology at Delhi

Delhi, NY • Private

In-State Tuition

$8,360

Enrollment

3,142

9. University of Charleston

Charleston, WV • Private

In-State Tuition

$30,900

Enrollment

1,910

10. University of Texas at Austin

Austin, TX • Private

In-State Tuition

$10,610

Enrollment

40,329

Top Skills For an Assistant Chef

The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 14.3% of assistant chefs listed kitchen equipment on their resume, but soft skills such as business skills and communication skills are important as well.

  • Kitchen Equipment, 14.3%
  • Safety Standards, 13.2%
  • Culinary, 12.4%
  • Customer Service, 9.9%
  • Compassion, 7.3%
  • Other Skills, 42.9%

Choose From 10+ Customizable Assistant Chef Resume templates

Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Assistant Chef templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Assistant Chef resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.

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Assistant Chef diversity

Assistant Chef Gender Distribution

Male
Male
71%
Female
Female
29%

After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:

  • Among assistant chefs, 28.6% of them are women, while 71.4% are men.

  • The most common race/ethnicity among assistant chefs is White, which makes up 54.5% of all assistant chefs.

  • The most common foreign language among assistant chefs is Spanish at 49.0%.

Online Courses For Assistant Chef That You May Like

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In this course, you will be able develop a systems view for patient safety and quality improvement in healthcare. By then end of this course, you will be able to: 1) Describe a minimum of four key events in the history of patient safety and quality improvement, 2) define the key characteristics of high reliability organizations, and 3) explain the benefits of having strategies for both proactive and reactive systems thinking...

3. Fun food safety and sanitation course

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The food safety course will help prepare you for safely working in a kitchen and food handler tests like Servesafe...

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Best States For an Assistant Chef

Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as an assistant chef. The best states for people in this position are New Jersey, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. Assistant chefs make the most in New Jersey with an average salary of $67,998. Whereas in New Hampshire and Rhode Island, they would average $60,038 and $57,540, respectively. While assistant chefs would only make an average of $57,052 in Massachusetts, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.

1. New Hampshire

Total Assistant Chef Jobs: 32
Highest 10% Earn:
$104,000
Location Quotient:
1.31

$60,038

Avg. Salary

View 32 Assistant Chef Jobs In NH

2. District of Columbia

Total Assistant Chef Jobs: 63
Highest 10% Earn:
$97,000
Location Quotient:
2.69

$56,172

Avg. Salary

View 63 Assistant Chef Jobs In DC

3. Massachusetts

Total Assistant Chef Jobs: 132
Highest 10% Earn:
$100,000
Location Quotient:
1.03

$57,052

Avg. Salary

View 132 Assistant Chef Jobs In MA
Full List Of Best States For Assistant Chefs

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Top Assistant Chef Employers

Most Common Employers For Assistant Chef

RankCompanyAverage SalaryHourly RateJob Openings
1Darden Restaurants$45,119$21.695
2College Chefs$44,237$21.274
3Young Chefs Academy$42,861$20.615
4Campus Cooks$39,730$19.108
5The Walt Disney Company$38,232$18.388
6Kroger$35,060$16.869
7Norwegian Cruise Line$34,607$16.644
8Marriott International$34,286$16.485
9Levy$33,451$16.084
10Compass Group USA$33,359$16.0412
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Assistant Chef Videos

Career Advice on becoming a Chef by Adam D (Full Version)
Career Advice on becoming a Company Executive Chef by Henrik R (Full Version)

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Updated April 6, 2023