Who Is The Man Behind Sam The Cooking Guy?

There are so many celebrity chefs these days on streaming, network, and cable television that you may have overlooked one of the most ubiquitous and popular online stars: Sam the Cooking Guy. Sam Zien is a Canadian-born YouTube star now based in San Diego, California, with almost 4 million subscribers on his channel. He specializes in mostly American cuisine, with an emphasis on keeping things simple and straightforward for home cooks. Under a curated list of "favorite recipes," he lists classics like grilled cheese, pizza, and burgers. He believes that a lot of chefs on television make things too complicated and confusing for beginners, and as he says on his own website, "Wasn't it time someone made cooking easy?"

Zien said in an interview with YurView that he thinks "most people just want to eat well and don't want to take forever." He makes food that is accessible, with easy to find ingredients, and tastes good.

With 15 Emmy Awards, six cookbooks, and four restaurants, it might be hard to believe Zien stays humble — however, he spoke with us in an exclusive interview and it's clear that his appeal is that he is down-to-earth and approachable as ever. Read more about who Sam the Cooking Guy really is!

Sam Zien doesn't have a background in culinary school, and in fact, grew up not knowing what he wanted to do. Before his success with cooking videos, he was in marketing, then opened a yogurt shop, and got into real estate, before he found himself working at a biotech company in San Diego as Director of Operations — where he has expressed that he was bored and miserable.

While daydreaming about what else he could do that would actually make him happy, he thought of a time that he traveled to Tokyo for his 40th birthday, and how the trip was so special and he wanted to go back. But instead of moving his family across the ocean to Asia, he said to us, "I had my first lightbulb moment ... when [I] came up with an idea to start a travel show."

He wanted to show other people that it could be interesting and not complicated to see other parts of the world, even if you don't know the language, or how to get around. So he quit his biotech job and set out to shoot a demo in Tokyo and Hong Kong in 2001. He imagined that he would shoot short interstitials for the evening news each week. "What I wanted to do, was encourage people to go travel, to go places they didn't think they could go," he told The Food Professor podcast. We almost had Sam the Travel Guy.

Sadly, when the tragedy of 9/11 happened, all of Sam Zien's plans for a travel show were put on hold when flights and vacations were no longer possible, and he couldn't shoot or sell anything travel-related.

When Zien was sidelined at home with no job and no plan, he started watching lots of television. He told us what happened next: "I saw a really horrible cooking segment on local news. The chef was making the most complicated butternut squash soup I've ever seen in my life, and I thought to myself, 'Why doesn't somebody do that but in a simpler and more encouraging fashion so that people would feel like they could make it?'"

And suddenly, Zien had his second "lightbulb moment" — he should demystify cooking, rather than travel. He got a crew to shoot a demo, although his wife initially, while supportive, reminded him he "just can't cook." Zien countered that was ideal: He felt that when you normally watched a cooking show, you'd just get hungry because the recipes were too complicated. He wanted to make a show where people could actually cook the meal. "If I can make it, anybody can make it," he said.

You can watch the original tape Sam Zien made to send out on his website. Everything about it screams amateur: The lighting and sound are bad, the camera work is unsteady, the graphics look cheesy, and Zien himself seems nervous, bordering on joyless. There's a moment where he can't find the whisk he needs to make his dish — and he notes that the camera guy wanted to edit it out of the video, but Zien insisted on leaving it in. This mistake would of course become part of his signature style of leaning into errors and using transparency to endear viewers to him.

Although the quality of the video was quite bad, Zien sent it out to industry professionals anyway. And while he did get several rejections and demoralizing comments ("you don't know what you're doing"), he got a hit when he sent it to a local San Diego station. They asked Zien to come on and do a regular segment twice a week, which lasted seven years. Those segments eventually expanded to 30-minute shows, winning Emmys, and selling to Discovery's Health Channel, before Zien transitioned to making his own show online.

Sam Zien distills his philosophy down for us. He says, "My style is casual, informative and def a little silly and irreverent at times. The goal really is to encourage people to cook — and that's the feedback I get all the time. " He goes back to talking about that complicated butternut squash recipe that first inspired him to make videos, and notes that the chef didn't give any alternatives to crème fraîche, which normal people may not have lying around at home. Zien says he would have told his audience to use sour cream, or something easy to find.

He also now skews toward meals that are easy for the men out there. Zien says that 75% of his audience is men between 18-45, and he wants to present foods that are easy for them in the kitchen. He does a lot of burgers, grilling, and burritos, which has also continued to grow his audience from the traditional female viewership.

Zien also continues to push back on the idea that he's a "chef," since he never went to culinary school or spent time in a restaurant kitchen. He's just a guy who cooks, making food that's "big in taste and small on effort," and wants to show others that if you do anything long enough, you can get better at it.

Leaning into his layperson identity, Sam Zien was a hit when he appeared on "The Today Show" with Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb for a cooking segment titled "Fine Dining at Affordable Prices." However, he didn't get attention for the dish he assembled, but rather, his snappy comments to the two hosts.

In the segment, he tries to explain his dish (a Greek salad), and Gifford keeps cutting him off. Zien loses his composure, and says "Please! Can I talk?" The audience nervously laughs as he pleads, "I watch the show every day, everybody has issues with a lot of chatter back here. Pay attention one minute." He seems to immediately know that he may have said something wrong, especially as Gifford insults his physical appearance.

While most on-air guests would have thought their careers were over, the opposite happened to Zien — the clip went viral, and led to even more success. His brand of just being himself was continuing to launch his show into the stratosphere. And ... he was invited back to "The Today Show" again two weeks later.

When we asked Sam Zien which chefs or on-air personalities he looks up to, he went old school: Julia Child. However, he noted it was not for her well-documented skills. Instead, he wants to take a page from her on-air ease and willingness to showcase failure.

He told us he admires "how natural she was on camera, but that she also left mistakes in, which has always been how I've worked. I've always believed if I made a mistake by dropping something, burning something ... even burning me, the audience could learn from it. So why take it out?"

But lest you think Zien is stuck in the past, he also offered up that he admires British chef Jamie Oliver, as well, again for his more laid-back nature. "I admire his casual style, what he makes and the way he explains things. Plus he's a Brit, and great to listen to," Zien says.

With Sam Zien's background in travel you won't be surprised to learn he's still inspired by cuisine from around the world, and even became a "foodie ambassador" for the Baja Norte Tourism Board. The idea is that Zien will help spread the word in the United States about all of the delicious cuisine to be found in Mexico, and help attract tourism to the region.

After traveling through Tijuana, Ensenada, and Valle De Guadalupe, where Zien visited establishments from food trucks to fine dining restaurants, he was impressed. Zien told San Diego Red that the experience was "beautiful" and "spectacular," and that he found a real love of cooking that he hadn't encountered before. He also enjoyed the idea that in Mexico you can really take your time over a meal without feeling ushered out the door, like in America.

Of course Zien also responded to the tasty food in a welcoming environment, as well.With his lack of fluency in Spanish, he hopes to encourage others by sharing his experience that if he can enjoy a meaningful trip, feel safe, and eat incredible food, that they can, too.

When asked if there is somewhere outside America that heavily affects his recipes or technique, Sam Zien didn't hesitate to say to us, "The Asian food world influences my cooking the most." He mentions that growing up in Vancouver, there was a large Chinese population, so Chinese food was always on the table growing up. Now he lives by the philosophy that "you can really make a hugely delicious change to your food world, by adding a few condiments from other people's kitchens" and specifically mentions gochujang from Korea and black bean sauce from China as examples.

Additionally, he told San Diego Magazine that Chinese New Year and beef chow fun was one of the first since segments he did when launching the YouTube show. And now, since the show is reaching people all over the world, and travel is popular on YouTube again, his son Max has been encouraging him to go film some segments in Asia, surrounded by people and the culture he loves. He says he'd love to find a regional cuisine and then teach people how to cook it.

Despite his success, Sam Zien has failures like the rest of us. He tells a story to San Diego Magazine about a time he was called to do an audition for a major network TV hosting gig. On the way to the audition, he passed a store with a bright orange shirt that caught his eye, making him think, "I'm looking good for this; I'm gonna stand out." But of course when he arrives to the studio, no one else is wearing orange, and when he goes in to meet the executives, he gets self conscious, bringing on a horrible case of dry mouth. Zien is so anxious a production assistant brings him a glass of water — and asks if he needs another.

He leaves the audition, walks back to his hotel in the pouring rain, and doesn't get the gig. When he flies home, his wife spots the orange shirt and she notes that might have had something to do with his terrible experience.

Zien still can't believe how bad he froze up. He says, "I've been on 'The Today Show' a thousand times. I've been in front of 1,500 people. Nothing scares me. But the second that door shut, I almost s*** myself."

For a guy who doesn't want to be a "professional" chef, Sam Zien is certainly racking up the experience of one — he is now a partner in four restaurants in San Diego's Little Italy. Samburgers has variations on fast food, including the jalapeño burger and a bacon bacon cheddar burger, with sides like loaded fries or tots. Not Not Tacos includes wild takes on what to put in a taco, like smoky pork and mac, hot chicken, and mashed potatoes. Graze is a snacking bar, with charcuterie and flatbreads, and Coo Coo's Nest is described as "bold chicken for the people, by the people with a '70s flair."

All four restaurants can be found in the Little Italy Food Hall, now open at the Piazza Famiglia. When asked why he wanted to open a restaurant, Zien replied, "Because I found people who could do it with me. Honestly, I couldn't pull it off myself." He partnered with Grain & Grit, a San Diego-based hospitality group. Zien says that he brought the personality and the branding, and they brought the experience of how to build, run, and staff it.

Sam Zien's food empire doesn't stop on the plate — you can purchase books, cookware, and apparel, as well. Zien has three cookbooks available through his website: "The Holy Grill: Easy and Delicious Recipes for Outdoor Grilling and Smoking," "Recipes with Intentional Leftovers," and "Between the Buns: Burgers, Sandwiches, Tacos, Burritos, Hot Dogs, and More."

The books seem as popular as Zien's videos, with one reviewer of "The Holy Grill" noting on Amazon, "Sam's sense of humor, and relaxed cooking vibes make this one of my favorite cookbooks. Buy it!" You can also purchase cast-iron tools such as a griddle or skillet, as well as knives, kitchen towels, and an apron, described as the "Best F*ing Apron" with leather straps and pockets. Zien also has a line of t-shirts with pithy phrases such as "If Fat Means Flavor Then I'm F***ing Delicious," and an anti-vegan ball cap.

The rest of Sam Zien's family often appears on camera and social media with him, including his wife, Kelly. The Ziens did a question and answer on Facebook live in 2022, where they drank beers and talked about what Sam the Cooking Guy was making for dinner (lamb).

The Ziens have three sons who also like to get in on the fun, particularly Max Zien, who has his own social media following. In fact, the boys have even started their own YouTube channel titled "The Sons of Sam the Cooking Guy," where they post humorous, playful cooking videos that riff off of what their dad does and include friendly competition.

When we asked if Kelly does the cooking at home, however, Zien was quick to mention that he enjoys cooking as much at home as on camera. He told us, "I do about 95% of the cooking in the house. My wife is an outstanding cook, and did all the cooking for the family when our kids were young. But I just really like to cook now and I'm happy doing it all the time."

Although Sam Zien has cooked just about everything at this point, we asked if he had a "white whale" he is working on — a dish that has been impossible for him to master thus far. He told us that it was "$@#%& Beef Wellington. I was so scared to try it for a long time that I would make any version other than the proper one. I did a Tomahawk Rib Eye Wellington, and even a Meatball Wellington because I was too scared to try the real one."

However, he did say that about a year ago he finally had one turn out OK taste and looks-wise, but his mushrooms had too much moisture, so he hadn't felt he mastered it yet. Hopefully one day! And finally, he tells us, "I've had a concept for an Asian-inspired restaurant rattling around in my head for a couple years now. Not sure it will ever come out, but when I think about it I get super excited. So I guess we'll see."