A Tooele High School student displayed her cooking chops at Utah’s Best Teen Chef competition on Saturday, but was unable to whip up the top prize.

Kathryn Salas, a senior at Tooele High School, was one of 11 top culinary students to participate in the statewide cooking competition in Draper.

This was the first cooking competition Salas entered since her parents began teaching her to cook as a child. Salas said she didn’t know what to expect at first, though she imagined something similar to television shows such as “Iron Chef.”

“It kind of was [like the television shows], but with less people and easier cooking,” Salas said. “At first it was intimidating. There was a lot of pressure, but it turned out to be pretty easy afterward.”

The competition was judged by KUTV’s on-air chef Bryan Woolley in conjunction with staff and advanced students from the Art Institute of Salt Lake City. After 30 minutes of demonstrating their basic culinary skills to the judges, the competitors were required to complete a rigorous routine of preparing a shrimp cocktail, sautéed chicken and rice, and sautéed broccoli with their choice of a creative sauce and garnish in an hour.

Though she was not chosen as Utah’s representative, Salas and her 10 fellow student chefs were praised by the Art Institute’s culinary arts academic director Frank Krause.

“Compared to last year, this group really shined,” Krause said. “They were a step above anything we’ve seen in the past. Every single one of them has that extra something they need to excel in the culinary arts.”

Salas and her competitors were selected from 28 Utah high school students who applied through a series of submissions, including an essay, an original recipe and high school transcript. Because she learned of the competition while touring the Art Institute, Salas missed the deadline for turning in her transcript. But it was her recipe — an unnamed cauliflower and chicken dish — that won the judges over.

After completing the application process, the top student cooks were then invited to take part in a cook-off where they could earn tuition scholarships to the Art Institute of Salt Lake City and the opportunity to be one of the 34 finalists in the National Best Teen Chef competition in May in Charlotte, N.C. Steven Maranto from Skyline High School was named the winner.

Salas said she was not disappointed by her loss, and continues planning to pursue a career in the culinary field.

“I really just love to cook,” she said. “It was the cooking that really mattered, not winning the competition.”