How To Become A Dinner Cook: What It Is and Career Path

What is a dinner cook and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

2 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a dinner cook. For example, did you know that they make an average of $16.55 an hour? That's $34,431 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 16% and produce 419,300 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreDinner CookUS Average

Salary

2.7

Avg. Salary $34,431

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

6.2

Growth rate 16%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

8.7

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 1.21%

Asian 8.06%

Black or African American 9.48%

Hispanic or Latino 16.11%

Unknown 4.81%

White 60.34%

Gender

female 31.16%

male 68.84%

Age - 37

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 37

Stress level

6.2

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

4.3

Complexity level is basic

7 - challenging

Work life balance

7.4

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a dinner cook

Explore dinner cook education requirements

Most common dinner cook degrees

Associate

31.2 %

High School Diploma

26.0 %

Bachelor's

23.7 %

Start to develop specific dinner cook skills

Skills	Percentages
Kitchen Equipment	23.74%
Culinary	16.29%
Fine Dining	13.94%
Sauces	12.68%
Dishes	6.66%

Complete relevant dinner cook training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New dinner cooks learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a dinner cook based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real dinner cook resumes.

Research dinner cook duties and responsibilities

Operate mixers and manage ingredients to meet product quality and uniformity standards.
Operate mixers and manage ingredients to meet product quality and uniformity standards.
Maintain and follow proper hygiene and sanitation standards.

Prepare your dinner cook resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your dinner cook resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a dinner cook resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable dinner cook resume templates

Build a professional dinner cook resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your dinner cook resume.