If you love cooking and enjoy sharing your passion with others, becoming a cooking instructor might be the perfect way to earn extra income — or even a full-time living. I recently sat down with Sarah Chen of Fresh Start Kitchen, a certified cooking instructor who turned her love of food into a thriving class business, and she's here to share exactly how you can do the same.
- In 2019, Sarah started hosting casual weekend cooking sessions for friends who kept asking to learn her recipes.
- Word spread fast — within months, strangers were signing up and paying her for lessons.
- She formalized the business by getting certified, setting proper pricing, and partnering with a local community center.
- Today, Sarah teaches up to four classes a week, earns a full-time income on part-time hours, and has a growing waitlist.
- She also created an online training program so others can replicate her model in their own cities.
Fresh Start Kitchen is a cooking instructor certification and business-building program designed for anyone who loves food and wants to build a flexible, profitable income — whether as a side hustle or a full career.
Here is how you can make money by becoming a cooking instructor:
Please give us a little background on yourself and how you got started as a cooking instructor.
Honestly, it started as something I never planned. I've always been the person in my friend group who hosts big dinners and sends everyone home with handwritten recipes. In 2019, my friend Priya kept begging me to show her how I made my grandmother's lamb curry from scratch. So, one Saturday I invited her and three other friends over, and we spent the afternoon cooking together.
They loved it so much they asked if we could do it again the following weekend — and the weekend after that. Pretty soon I had 12 people crammed into my kitchen and a waitlist forming. One of them slipped $40 into my hand at the end of class and said, "For your time and the groceries." That moment stopped me cold. I thought — wait, could I actually do this as a business? Six months later, Fresh Start Kitchen was officially open.
Can you walk us through how this business actually works?
It's a straightforward three-step model. First, you get certified — I offer an online certification course that covers everything from business setup and food safety to marketing your classes and pricing your services. It's self-paced, so you can finish it in a few weeks or a few months depending on your schedule.
Second, you decide where and how you want to teach. Some instructors use their home kitchens. Others partner with community centers, churches, gyms, or local grocery stores — many of these spaces are free or very low-cost. Third, you start booking classes and collecting payments. I provide certified instructors with lesson plans, recipes, marketing templates, and an optional online booking system.
How much money can a new cooking instructor realistically expect to make?
More than most people expect. Here's a concrete example: if you teach one two-hour class per week with 10 students at $35 per student, that's $350 in revenue. Your food and supply costs run about $5 per student — roughly $50 total — leaving you with $300 profit. That's $150 per hour for two hours of teaching time.
One class a week gives you around $15,000 a year. Two classes a week is $30,000. Three is $45,000. I have instructors in my network who teach four to five classes a week and clear $60,000 or more annually — working what most people would call part-time hours. One of my top instructors booked $58,000 last year from summer cooking camps alone. And you keep 100% of what you earn — no franchise fees, no commissions.
Is this a full-time career or more of a side hustle?
It can be either — or that's one of my favorite things about this model. When I started, I was still working a 9-to-5 job in marketing. I taught one class on Saturday mornings and built my student base slowly. Within eight months I had replaced my corporate salary and left my job. But plenty of instructors in my network choose to keep this as a side income, teaching one or two classes a weekend and earning an extra $1,000 to $2,000 a month.
The flexibility is real. You set your own schedule, choose your class topics, and decide how big or small you want to grow. Some of my certified instructors are stay-at-home parents who teach while the kids are at school. Others are retirees looking for a fun way to stay active and earn. It fits around your life rather than the other way around.
What do you love most about running this business?
Two things. The first is watching someone successfully make a dish they thought was beyond them and seeing the pride on their face. People come in thinking they can't cook, and they leave feeling genuinely capable in the kitchen. That transformation never gets old.
The second is the financial freedom. I work fewer hours than I did at my corporate job, I earn more, and every single day I'm doing something I love. I set my own hours, take summers mostly off to travel, and have no boss to answer to. That combination of meaningful work and financial flexibility is something I wish more people knew was available to them.
How can someone get started with your program?
The first step is visiting our website and watching the free intro webinar. It walks you through exactly what the certification covers, what you'll be able to do when you finish, and what a typical first month of teaching looks like. From there, if it feels like a fit, you enroll in the online certification course and work through the 10 modules at your own pace.
I also recommend attending a local cooking class before you start building your own — it's incredibly useful to see how a professional class runs. You can also join our free Facebook community for instructors-in-training, where current instructors answer questions, share what's working, and offer encouragement.
What does it cost to start and maintain this business?
The certification course is a one-time fee of $447. On top of that, you'll want a food safety handling certificate (about $20) and a background check (about $15). Liability insurance runs $300 to $500 per year depending on your location.
If you join the ongoing instructor community — which gives you access to lesson plans, recipes, a class scheduler, and a payment portal — membership starts at $49 per month. An optional Instructor Starter Kit (apron, chef knives, cutting boards, and measuring tools) runs about $185. All in, your first-year investment is typically around $1,200 to $1,500 — which most instructors recoup completely within their first month of teaching.
What tips do you have for someone seriously considering this?
Start before you feel ready. I wasted almost three months second-guessing myself before teaching my first paid class, and that hesitation was completely unnecessary. Your first class doesn't need to be perfect — it just needs to happen. You'll learn more in one real class than in weeks of preparation.
Also, don't overthink your niche. You don't need to be a trained chef. If you make incredible tacos, teach a taco class. If you're obsessed with sourdough, teach a bread class. People are hungry for authentic, practical cooking knowledge, and you don't need a culinary degree to provide it. The instructors who struggle wait until they feel "expert enough." The ones who thrive start teaching what they already know.
What will someone learn from your certification program?
The program has 10 modules covering everything you need to go from zero to fully operational. That includes how to structure your business legally, what licenses and permits you need, how to price your classes, how to market yourself locally and online, how to create engaging lesson plans, how to handle food safety, and how to grow your student base through referrals and community partnerships.
By the time you finish, you're not just certified — you have a complete business plan, a marketing strategy, your first three class curricula developed, and a clear path to your first booking. I built this because when I started, I had to figure everything out through expensive trial and error. I didn't want that to be anyone else's experience.
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