'Chopped Castaways' Week 2 Elimination: Can You Dig It?

By Andrea Reiher Parade - Trending Stories

Updated May 19, 2026 7:44 PM

Last week on Chopped Castaways, the 12 contestants weren't quite ready for what they signed on for and Sunny Moody was sent home.

On the second episode of Chopped Castaways, the 11 remaining contestants had to dig their ingredients out of the sand and prepare a family-style feast in just 90 minutes. Then the two lowest chefs on the losing team had to face off in the dreaded Gauntlet, which this week featured a torrential rainstorm and a funking alcoholic beverage called mamajuana.

In case you forgot, the teams are as follows:

Green Team: Cate, James, Dwight, Ara, Hannah and Paulette
Blue Team: Aidan, Jean-Paul, Logan, Steph and Carrie

Spoiler alert: The post below discusses the Tuesday, May 19 episode of Chopped Castaways, titled "Dig In or Go Home." Don't keep reading if you don't want to be spoiled.

Who Went Home on 'Chopped Castaways' Tonight?

Cate Meade - Chicago, IL

Advancing Contestants on 'Chopped Castaways' Season 1

Aidan Barry Owens - San Diego, CA

Ara Zada - Los Angeles, CA

Carrie Baird - Denver, CO

Dwight Hudgins - Largo, FL

Hannah Flora - Boynton Beach, FL

James Peck - Northampton, England

Jean-Paul Bourgeois - Thibodaux, LA

Logan Sandoval - Simi Valley, CA

Paulette Tejada - New York, NY

Stephen Kina - Kalispell, MT

What Were the Challenges on 'Chopped Castaways' Episode 2?

The weather on the island was all over the place this week. As Carrie hilariously put it, she was cold and wet but also hot at the same time, basically all the time. During the Team Challenge, it was absolutely pouring down rain. Not a storm, but just a steady deluge. Poor Maneet in her gorgeous island attire looked absolutely cold and miserable.

Team Challenge

The chefs were sent to dig for ingredients. Inside four digging zones, there were four Xs. Two were decoys and two were two versions of one ingredient-one version of the ingredient was premium, one less so, so for example, queso fresco or spray cheese in a can. Whichever ingredient they dug up, they had to use. The ingredients were two versions of beef, corn, eggs and cheese.

They were given just 90 minutes to dig up their ingredients and cook a five-dish family feast-and each dish had to incorporate all four mystery ingredients. Wow, that is not a lot of time because they could only have one chef dig at a time.

The ingredients the teams ended up with were:

Blue Team:popcorn kernels (not premium), beef bavette (premium), queso fresco (premium) and century eggs (not premium).
Green Team: spray cheese (not premium), popcorn kernels, beef bavette and century eggs.

It's interesting that they ended up with identical ingredients save for the cheese. The dishes the teams decided on were:

Blue Team

Logan: Grilled bavette with yuca mash
Aidan: Bavette carpaccio
Carrie: Fried tostones with seared bavette
Steph: Bavette hash
Jean-Paul: Bavette steak with century egg salsa verde

Green Team

Paulette: Bavette tagliata salad
James: Deviled eggs
Dwight: Country potato hash
Ara: Latke with grilled bavette
Cate: Bayette tartare with yuca chips
Hannah: She was the tournant, which meannt she was the swing chef running around helping whoever needed help.

We found out during the Team Challenge that Paulette has a bit of crush on James, who then told a producer that while he is single, he's "emotionally unavailable and dead inside." Ha!

We also found out that the chef Jean-Paul was referring to in the preview for this week whom he called the biggest threat but also the biggest team asset is Aidan, and later, he's the chef who judge Marcus Samuelsson said was cooking beyond his years.

Finally, Hannah also shared that six years ago, her husband died by suicide. That's awful. I can hardly imagine anything worse.

After judging, the Blue Team emerged victorious in the Team Challenge, which sent Green Team members Cate and James to the Gauntlet.

The Gauntlet

In the Gauntlet, Cate and James were given mystery baskets that contain: rabbit saddle, pineapple, mamajuana and bok choy. Mamajuana is like a sangria or mulled wine-type thing but with rum. It's rum, red wine and honey that has spices, roots, herbs and bark infused in it. It's originally from the Dominican Republic.

James prepared rabbit ramen with charred pineapple and burnt leek vinaigrette, while Cate prepared mamajuana and pineapple marinated rabbit with pineapple and bok choy slaw. Cate had a huge advantage because she grew up hunting and cooking rabbit. She very smartly marinated her rabbit in the juice from the pineapple, which has an enzyme that naturally tenderizes meat.

It seemed like James incorporated way more pantry ingredients than Cate did and that's always a risk on Chopped-that you used too many other things and didn't focus on the basket ingredients enough.

And suddenly with about 10 minutes left in the cook, it absolutely started pouring down rain, but the chefs watching jumped in to hold umbrellas over the contestants, even the Blue Team holding umbrellas for Cate. It was very nice.

In the end, Cate was sent home for not having a cohesive dish. Bummer, I enjoyed her.

Next on 'Chopped Castaways'

Next week's episode is titled "Dive Deep" and its description reads, "For a high-risk challenge, the 10 remaining chefs must dive into choppy waters to retrieve their basket ingredients. In the head-to-head elimination Gauntlet, a delicate protein meets unexpected flavors, and relentless smoke pushes precision to the limit."

In the preview montage, it looks like Hannah really struggles with the swimming and might actually be in danger at one point. The ocean and its undercurrents are no joke.

Chopped Castaways airs Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Food Network.

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This story was originally published May 19, 2026 at 6:25 PM.