Aarón Sánchez Explains The Difference Between El Sabor De Aarón And Chopped - Exclusive

Aarón Sánchez has an extensive list of TV credits stretching all the way back to 2007 (via IMDb). While he's been on all kinds of shows, many people might recognize him most from his stints as a judge on cooking competition shows like "Chopped" and "MasterChef."

Now the chef, TV personality, and restaurateur has his own show on Hogar de HGTV. "El Sabor de Aarón," as you might guess from his TV history, is a competition show. As Hola! reports, each week, two chefs with backgrounds from different Latin American countries enter the kitchen to battle against each other to create the best dish using ingredients selected by Sánchez. However, while every episode picks a winner, this show doesn't feature the cutthroat fighting you can see every week on "Chopped." 

In an exclusive interview, Sánchez told Mashed that the show is less about who wins and more an excuse to "highlight Latinos from those respective countries, but who are living currently in the States and are doing justice and paying homage to their roots through food." It's a chance for Sánchez to offer a platform to chefs cooking exciting food, whether or not they win or lose.

In "Chopped," the competition is everything. In "El Sabor de Aarón," not so much. Said Sánchez, "Yes, there was a competition element to it, but everyone comes out a winner, you know what I mean? That was important for me." This attitude extends to the atmosphere on the show's set, which is much friendlier and more convivial than "Chopped."

Sánchez views the show as an opportunity to be a mentor to the contestants. He told Mashed, "'Chopped' is different in the sense that we have a very brief time with them. It's hard to mentor or to teach in that small abbreviated period. On 'El Sabor de Aarón,' we have them for a long day." This allows the chef to share some of the knowledge he has accrued in his decades in the kitchen. "I'm teaching them things off-camera that I've learned that can help them."

For Sánchez, education is one of the foundational duties of being a chef. As he shared, "We're teaching — that's what the word chef means."

You can watch "El Sabor de Aarón" on Hogar de HGTV Thursdays at 9:00 p.m. ET and on Discovery Familia Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. ET.