Glossary
Chef Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential chef terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key chef vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in chef training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- 86
- Kitchen slang for an item that’s sold out.
- Brigade system
- The kitchen hierarchy of chef, sous chef and station cooks.
- Cross-contact
- Allergen transfer between foods.
- Expediting
- Coordinating orders between kitchen and servers.
- Family meal
- A staff meal before service.
- FIFO
- First in, first out: using older stock first.
- Food cost percentage
- Food cost divided by food sales.
- HACCP
- A system for controlling food safety hazards.
- Mise en place
- Having everything prepared and in place before cooking.
- Mother sauces
- Five classic French base sauces.
- Par level
- The amount of an item to keep on hand.
- Plate cost
- The cost of ingredients in one dish.
- Sous vide
- Cooking sealed food in a precise water bath.
- Ticket time
- How long an order takes to complete.
- Walk-in
- A walk-in refrigerator or freezer.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Chef practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Chef training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.