America's top 24 junior home cooks enter the kitchen for the first time and jump right into their first mystery box challenge. Each junior home cook is tasked with preparing a signature burger and one side. The winner of the challenge has a significant advantage and selects the main ingredient that the remaining contestants must use in the season's first elimination round. The junior home cooks with the best dishes advance in the competition.

Season Two winner Logan returns to offer some advice to the remaining contestants. The top three contestants from the previous elimination challenge competes in a cupcake-frosting contest, during which only the winner can keep the judges safe from a sticky situation. Then, in the next challenge, the contestants is tasked with making a scallop dish in order to move onto the next round in the competition.

The Top 20 junior home cooks face an out-of-this-world Mystery Box challenge with special guest astronaut Tracy Dyson, during which they must prepare a unique dish that highlights a stellar ingredient. The one who rockets to the top has a significant advantage in the elimination challenge, when the contestants is tasked with creating a stunning and delicious fish dish in order to move onto the next round.

The remaining 18 junior home cooks face their first team challenge of the season and the first-ever MasterChef Junior team relay race. Each team must create a large serving of seven-layer dip. The team that completes the dip first is safe from the next elimination challenge, and choose the smelly, wrinkly, or spicy ingredients for that challenge. Find out who smells their way to victory and who dips lower in the competition.

The remaining junior home cooks party their way into the next team challenge when they leave the MasterChef Junior kitchen for the first time to cook at a birthday party for kids ages 8-13, as well as special guests, the Ramsay and Elliot children. The team that receives the most votes from the birthday party attendees is safe from elimination, while the losing team competes in the next pressure test and create the French dessert croquembouche.

The remaining junior home cooks squeeze in a seven-minute team challenge, in which they must make a batch of raspberry mint lemonade for judge Christina Tosi to blind taste test. Tosi decides which team has the best lemonade and is safe from elimination, while the losing team competes in the next challenge, during which they must create a rad dish from a decade in which one of the judges was born.

After a tough elimination challenge, the Top 12 junior home cooks face their next task when the judges test their senses in a blind taste challenge. Each contestant blindly tastes a dish prepared by Gordon Ramsay and then must recreate the dish. The contestant with the dish that best reflects Gordon's dish receives a significant advantage. In the next team challenge, the junior home cooks prepare VIP dishes for a dining room of all grandmothers for their first restaurant challenge. Each team creates a unique dish of “new” ingredients and the team with the most votes is safe from elimination. Find out who moves on to the Top 10 and who leaves the kitchen.

In the next team challenge, the junior home cooks will face an egg-cellent challenge and compete in pairs to see who can complete the most deviled eggs in 12 minutes. The team that perfects the most deviled eggs will be safe from the next elimination challenge, in which contestants must create their future cookbook's signature dish.

Christina Tosi brings a special guest into the MasterChef kitchen — her mom — to present the next mystery box challenge, which will feature all of Christina's favorite childhood foods. Then, contestants will compete in a tag team platter challenge using international street food ingredients.

The remaining 6 junior home cooks receive a special invitation to Gordon's home for their next team challenge. Each team will prepare a two-course menu for a VIP lunch, including a seared red snapper appetizer and a roasted venison loin entrée. Later in the MasterChef kitchen, the judges will reveal which team received the best overall feedback on their dishes and had the most successful lunch service and which contestants will be in jeopardy of elimination. Then, it's up to the judges to decide who will go home and who will continue in the competition and compete in the semi-finals.

The remaining 4 junior home cooks compete in the semi-finals and are challenged to make the ultimate dessert - a soufflé! The winner receives a huge advantage in the elimination challenge. Later, the contestants must prepare a unique dish with a select cut of pork. Then, it's up to the judges to decide who will go home and who will continue in the competition and compete in the finals.

In the highly anticipated season finale, the two finalists will compete head-to-head and prepare the most important menu of their lives. Find out which talented junior home cook will earn the MasterChef trophy and a $100,000 prize.