The National Chicken Cooking Contest is the nation's premier competitive chicken cooking event, and is the longest-running cooking contest of any type, having started a few months before the Pillsbury Bake-Off.

The Contest was first held in June 1949 at the Delmarva Poultry Festival, a regional event for Delaware and the portions of Maryland and Virginia east of Chesapeake Bay.  The contest grew until it was taken over by the National Broiler Council (now the National Chicken Council) in 1971.  The grand prize was set at $10,000 and eventually grew to $25,000.  The competition was held annually until 1983, when it moved to an alternate year schedule. The grand prize is currently $50,000, putting the NCCC among the most lucrative cooking contests in the nation. 

The National Cookoff is held every two years, rotating among cities in states with significant broiler chicken industries. Recent host cities have included:

48th 2009 – San Antonio, Texas
47th 2007 - Birmingham, Alabama
46th 2005 - Charlotte, North Carolina
45th 2003 - Baltimore, Maryland
44th 2001 - Sacramento, California
43rd 1999 - Dallas, Texas
42nd 1997 - Hilton Head, South Carolina
41st 1995 - Atlanta, Georgia
40th 1993 - Richmond, Virginia
39th 1991 - Little Rock, Arkansas
38th 1989 - Hershey, Pennsylvania
37th 1987 - Jackson, Mississippi

The National Chicken Cooking Contest is sponsored by the National Chicken Council, the trade association for the nation’s chicken companies, in the interest of uncovering new trends in chicken cookery and encouraging the development of new recipes for chicken. Thousands of recipes have been entered over the years. A database of finalist recipes is available in our Recipe Database.