Best Moments From Alton Brown's Good Eats, Ranked

Cooking show fans are undoubtedly familiar with the friendly, bespectacled face of Alton Brown. In a sector of media that is so often filled with pretentiousness, perfectionism, and cooking techniques or recipes that are unobtainable for the average home cook, Brown's show, "Good Eats," brought humor and casual learning to the culinary television space. It was a breath of fresh air for those of us who want to gain new knowledge in the kitchen, but also know that we will make mistakes and laugh at ourselves along the way.

There are tons of episodes to choose from when picking our favorite moments out of "Good Eats," given that the show filmed for 13 years from 1999 to 2012 — and that's not even including the two-year revival of the series that ran from 2019 to 2021. We are still putting Brown's recipes to use a decade after the show's finale, and we like to think that we employ his same no-pressure, laugh-it-off approach to exploring new things in the kitchen. 

On "Good Eats," Brown often shed light on the science behind cooking, too. In short, the show is full of excellent cooking tips, cheeky Brown quotes, and outrageously goofy storytelling enhancements, such as puppets and a fictitious evil twin. Here are the moments from "Good Eats" that have stuck with us through the years — whether for their valuable cooking wisdom, scientific enlightenment of what happens in the kitchen, or for the laughs they've invoked. 

We enjoyed the crust episode of "Good Eats" Season 2 from start to finish, but one moment that stands out to us happens in just the first few minutes of the episode. But, first, some background: "Crust Never Sleeps" is all about the frustrating enigma of pie crust. Our friend Mr. Brown struggles with the contradictory use of tender and flaky pie terminology. "Ask any American to describe the perfect crust, and you're going to get the same cockamamie answer," says Brown in the episode. "Tender and flaky. How the oxymoron torments me." 

He goes on to explain that flaky more accurately describes something like a puff pastry — which is crisp and structural — while biscuits, soft and pliant, better represent a tender dough. "Put 'em together you've got a biscuit that goes snap!" Brown exclaims in frustration over these contradictory wants.

But it's not Brown's existential crisis over a couple of bakery adjectives that make the moment stand out. It's not even the immediate use of the pie/pi joke that happens at this moment, too. It's the goofy puppets that pop up in the background, each with an F or T on their shirts for tender or flaky, to briefly pummel Brown's head as he ruminates. Both puppets are a goofy sight: Flaky seems to be the biker alter-ego of Santa Claus, and Tender his pink-haired counterpart. The mischievous duo are Brown's antagonists for the episode and a prime example of the show's lighthearted humor.

Don't watch "In the Bulb of the Night" with the lights out! This episode brings us one of our favorite intro scenes in the whole series. We knew this fourth season "Good Eats" episode was going to be good when it opened with spooky music, a vintage horror movie font, and a pale hand seen reaching for an old-timey door knocker. Who answers that door? It's our friend Alton, who welcomes his friend "Vladimir" inside. If you're looking for subtlety, this isn't it, as it's easy to catch on to the skit right away. With a garlic-themed episode, bone-chilling organ music, and a faceless man named Vladimir who lingers on Brown's stoop until our narrator invites him inside, you may get worried about our host's health.

As it turns out, Vlad is visiting Brown to get help treating his phobia of garlic. The visitor has had some trouble in his dating life as a result. "Modern women all want chefs," he tells Brown. "I try to cook, but today's recipes call for heaping piles of that cursed Italian weed." The host seems oblivious to Vlad's nature, despite complimenting his cape and agreeing to meet at the local grocery store only at night. Does Alton ever catch on to this strange houseguest? You'll have to tune in to the episode to find out. 

Alton Brown is not a fan of stuffing, going so far as to deem the popular Thanksgiving side dish a moral wrong, as he wrote in "Good Eats: The Early Years" (via Serious Eats). We know what you're thinking: Okay, wise guy, if cooking stuffing in the turkey cavity is evil, then how on earth do you make the perfect Thanksgiving turkey?

In Season 1's "Romancing the Bird," Brown is found to be combating a dark family tradition of producing dry Thanksgiving turkey. The host has an ironically sepia-toned flashback to the 1970s when he was given a prophecy by a mysterious bandana-clad stranger who, for reasons that were not important to the storyline, was in Brown's childhood home for Thanksgiving dinner. 

"The turkey is strong with you. The turkey is your destiny," the man tells young Brown. The bizarre flashback scene is our favorite, but it's only one reason why this episode stood out. Having been guilty of kitchen crimes committed against Thanksgiving meat ourselves in the past, we still implement Brown's advice for avoiding a criminally dry holiday turkey, as dispensed in "Romancing the Bird."

Are you mired in a long, fruitless pursuit of the absolute best recipe for chocolate chip cookies? Let Alton Brown be your guide. In "Good Eats" Season 3's "Three Chips for Sister Marsha," Brown is doing some baking for his naggy sister, Marsha.

Through the course of the episode, Brown shows us three different methods of baking chocolate chip cookies. Does it come as a surprise that Alton uses the Nestlé Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe that's right on the back of the chocolate chip bag (granted, with a few modifications)? Of all the moments, this may be the best: the thin and crispy chocolate chip cookie recipe he gives us here is still our go-to for family gatherings, potlucks, and satiating our sweet tooth. Meanwhile, Brown's tip to sift both the salt and baking soda has changed our cookie-baking game forever.

An honorable mention from this episode is the appearance of Major Wilfred D. Cookie, a puppet that Alton hints is the Cookie Monster's brother. "I told you never to mention that ruffian!" shouts the puppet when the connection is floated. "All he knows about cookies is how to shovel them into his face."

It comes as no surprise that the big man in the red suit would cameo at least once in "Good Eats." In Season 7's "The Cookie Clause," A.B. is visited by one very crabby Mr. Claus. Santa is frustrated by subpar Christmas cookies and challenges Alton to make the perfect holiday treat — or risk ending up on the naughty list. Our favorite moment from this episode has to be when Alton uses a funnel duct-taped to a sifter to add powdered sugar to his stand mixer. We have to applaud the ingenuity. 

As a bonus, an age-old baking question is answered in this episode: Why can't you add all the flour to a batter at once? Well, according to Brown, that's because the flour's job is to soak up the moisture in the cookie dough. Since there's not a lot of excess water, to begin with, the flour needs to be added slowly so moisture can be gradually absorbed. Oh, and also because adding all the flour to your mixer would create a mess of a white, floury Christmas in your kitchen. More baking knowledge courtesy of "The Cookie Clause" includes how to cover up a mistake when you mess up the icing and why you shouldn't use metal cookie cutters, so don't skip out on watching this episode. 

Alton Brown seeks to tell us about the underappreciated and surprisingly sophisticated nature of punch in Season 13's "Feeling Punchy." Most children probably know fruit punch as some neon-hued, syrupy-sweet drink that comes out of a juice box. Meanwhile, quite a few adults probably know it as six types of alcohol that have been poured into a trash can with half a container of Kool-Aid powder. But there is much more to the beverage than kiddie drinks or frat parties, insists Brown. In that spirit, the episode teaches us how to make real punch recipes such as a classic hot toddy and the Cape Fear punch.

The most memorable moment of this episode, though, happens right away in the introduction. Alton, dressed in a suit and at a party, speaks to the camera while guests mingle at a table behind him. In the background, a white-haired old woman takes a furtive look around, then slinks up to the spread and proceeds to pour an entire bottle of liquor into the punch bowl. She then passes a glass of the newly-spiked punch to an unsuspecting Alton with a sly smile.