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

What is a lunch 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 lunch cook. For example, did you know that they make an average of $15.77 an hour? That's $32,796 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 16% and produce 419,300 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreLunch CookUS Average

Salary

2.6

Avg. Salary $32,796

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

6.2

Growth rate 16%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

8.4

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 1.20%

Asian 8.10%

Black or African American 8.58%

Hispanic or Latino 15.23%

Unknown 4.79%

White 62.10%

Gender

female 42.64%

male 57.36%

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 lunch cook

Explore lunch cook education requirements

Most common lunch cook degrees

Associate

35.7 %

High School Diploma

31.4 %

Bachelor's

17.9 %

Start to develop specific lunch cook skills

Skills	Percentages
Kitchen Equipment	14.30%
Culinary	13.87%
Food Handling	13.76%
Dishes	12.53%
Cleanliness	10.31%

Complete relevant lunch cook training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New lunch 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 lunch cook based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real lunch cook resumes.

Research lunch cook duties and responsibilities

Operate mixers and manage ingredients to meet product quality and uniformity standards.
Operate ovens, stoves, microwaves, fryers, slicers, blenders, scales, and food processor.
Work saut, grill and fryers.
Prepare omelets and pasta make to order as well as carving station.

Prepare your lunch cook resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your lunch 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 lunch 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 lunch cook resume templates

Build a professional lunch 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 lunch cook resume.