12-month Holistic Chef Culinary Program, 100% Online + Industry Externship

Join the food change movement and become a Holistic Chef! You can train to create delicious, health-forward dishes from your own kitchen. Learn to feed your community in a way that promotes wellness, enhances mood, and honors our collective food history.

At Bauman College, we believe that chefs are truly the first caretaker of a person’s well-being. By what you choose to include on a plate, you can bring nourishment, enjoyment, and connection to people. And there are so many ways that you can do this!

As a private chef, you may work directly with families in their homes designing daily menus and serving food that meets their lifestyle needs.

As a personal chef, you may work with several clients, meal planning, and batch cooking to stock their fridges and feed them for the week.

As a caterer, you’re trusted to create memorable special occasion meals that bring together loved ones in joy and celebration.

Or you can reach more people by starting a meal delivery service where your customers order from your set menus so that they can eat convenient and wholesome meals at home.

Your Holistic Chef certification opens doors as a food writer, cookbook, author, restaurant owner, head chef, and food advocate. 

Upon completion of our 12-month, 100% online + industry externship Holistic Chef culinary program, you will have expertise in the following areas so that you can craft your own career and find work you love:

• Culinary Foundations + Knife Skills + Kitchen Safety
• Cooking for Food Allergies + Sensitivities
• Restorative Cooking + Menu Planning
• The Eating for Health® Approach
• Farm-to-Table Culinary Techniques
• Alternative Baking
• Cultural Cuisines + Flavor Profiles
• Plating Styles + Culinary Entrepreneurship
• And More!

You’ll learn how to create meals based on a person’s unique lifestyle, tastes, and dietary requirements while considering the importance of flavor, texture, and visual appeal.

• Make vegetables taste delicious!
• Understand the health benefits of the ingredients you use!
• Choose to cook with either animal proteins or plant proteins.
• Utilize alternative ingredients to promote health.
• Source sustainable quality foods.
• Reduce food waste and consider the environment.
• Specialize in vegan, paleo, keto, gluten-free, dairy-free, or other therapeutic diets.
• Honor traditional foods and food preparations
• Consider food access and food cost when creating recipes

As a Holistic Chef, you’ll learn the business skills and day-to-day operations needed to succeed as a chef. While traditional culinary schools train almost entirely for restaurant work, Bauman College trains you to have a sustainable and health-supportive culinary career with better pay, better hours, and a healthier approach to feeding people.

The 12-month, online Holistic Chef Program is composed of:

Kitchen Courses

• Holistic Chef Fundamentals trains students on the fundamental skills needed to source ingredients, decipher recipes, adjust flavors, and think like a chef. But unlike other programs, we also teach students about the nutrition behind the food that’s being made and provide information about food equity, and ecological issues that impact the food system. Knowing all of this is so important because it helps chefs cook with confidence and integrity.
• Knife Skills + Culinary Techniques trains students in the foundations of food preparation, sanitation, and mise en place skills that will set them up to be able to work in a professional kitchen. All of our labs include plant-based vegan options! For example, a student might choose to skin a fish or a melon, which both use a similar knife technique. In addition to knife techniques, foundational cooking techniques and food preparation, students will complete the ServSafe® course.
• Foundational Ingredients teaches students culinary techniques and traditional cooking methods used to prepare sauces, stocks, dressing, grain and legumes. They also learn ancestral cooking methods – like sprouting and fermentation methods and their immune-enhancing benefits. Students also learn new innovative ways to accommodate food intolerances and still make delicious meals and have the option to work with their choice of traditional ingredients or alternative ingredients in the cooking labs. 
• Pastry Arts + Alternative Baking trains students in professional baking skills and provides the experience of both traditional methods and modern techniques that accommodate food allergies, intolerances, and sensitivities. Students also learn alternative ingredient strategies for making gluten-free, grain-free, and/or egg-free recipes. 
• Cooking for Health trains students to cook with skillful attention and compassion for individuals based on their life stage, health status, and personal taste preferences. This includes planning supportive meals, designing menus, and properly preparing food that promotes wellness in the general population. 
• Specialty Diets teaches students how to cook safe and delicious meals for individuals adhering to common therapeutic diets including Low FODMAP, DASH, AIP, Ketogenic, and the Mediterranean Diet. This will also prepare students with the skills required to work in collaboration with physicians, nutrition consultants, and other health and wellness professionals.

Specialty Ingredient Pantry Kit

To help you along the way through your courses, we will send you a Specialty Ingredient Pantry Kit! We want to make sure you have access to some of the more hard to find items: while common ingredients are much easier and less expensive to source locally, this kit of specialty ingredients can save you a lot of money! You’ll receive your complimentary box full of specialty spices and ingredients in time to use them in the corresponding Virtual Classes and lab recipes. 

Culinary Career Courses

• Business provides information on marketing, business finance, professional sustainability, and entrepreneurship. There’s also self-discovery to see if students are more suited to run a business or work as an employee. Graduates complete the program with a professional resume and a business plan so they can begin their career as a Holistic Chef. 
• Externship prepares students for finding and maintaining employment in the field of personal or private cheffing by providing them with a similar experience while under the supervision of Bauman College. The Externship is an opportunity for students to gain understanding, experience, and confidence before employment or entrepreneurship by providing them with this smooth transition from school to the workforce. Externship hours are supervised and may include working in the following settings:
  • Restaurants
  • Catering Companies
  • Business Corporations
  • Nonprofit Organizations
  • Resorts, Hotels, or Retreats
  • Food Production Companies
  • And More!
• Chef’s Table Event provides students with an opportunity to highlight their culinary vision and skills as a chef! In this last course, students a menu and host a Chef’s Table Event that features dishes that resonate with them and their culinary perspective. They work through budgeting, creating a realistic work schedule, and practice their menu development and plating techniques.

Holistic Chef Career-Oriented Features

The Holistic Chef Program also offers resources and educational experiences which are directly beneficial to working as a personal chef, private chef, meal-delivery chef, or dinner-party caterer.

• ServSafe® certification: Students receive their ServSafe® certificates in kitchen safety and sanitation. This certificate is an asset to chefs working in people’s homes, to reassure clients that the chef is knowledgeable and competent in the best practices of food safety.
• Modernmeal: Students receive access to our Bauman College recipe database on the Modernmeal platform. They learn how to use Modernmeal to create menus and shopping lists for clients and to connect with other culinary students and professionals.

Equipped with health-supportive culinary expertise, how to cook to support clients’ individual health goals, and business and professional acumen, Bauman College Holistic Chef graduates find fulfilling work in the food industry while bringing individual and societal healing.

Tuition & Financial Aid

The Holistic Chef and Nutrition Consultant programs are approved to offer Federal Student Aid under the National Holistic Institute for students who qualify.  To see what you may qualify for, please visit National Holistic Institute’s Federal Student Aid Page.

Online Holistic Chef Culinary Program

• 800 Hours | Total Hours to Complete
• 12 Months | Program Length
• 100% Online + Industry Externship | Learning Environment
• $17,750 Tuition
• $50 Registration Fee
• $957 Books & Supplies
• $15 ServSafe
• $47.50 Student Tuition Recovery Fund

Would you like more information on what types of financial aid you may qualify for?

We encourage you to submit your contact information using the “Get Details Now!” form so that one of our Admissions Representatives can help you connect with a Financial Aid Advisor

You can afford to go to Bauman College

The Holistic Chef and Nutrition Consultant programs are in the process of applying for all appropriate approvals to offer Federal Student Aid under the National Holistic Institute.  To see what you may qualify for, please visit National Holistic Institute’s Federal Student Aid Page.

Holistic Chef Career Opportunities

Being trained as a Holistic Chef opens the door to many opportunities across the country and globally. Whether you want to stay right where you are, practice in another state, or find work across the globe, there are a variety of job and business opportunities for our culinary graduates.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects chefs and cooks to have a faster than average growth rate in the next ten years.^* Whether you prefer to work with your hands, want flexible hours, or are looking for a great self-employment opportunity, Holistic Chefs can look forward to exciting work opportunities in a growing variety of settings.

Over 95% of our 2022 graduates are currently working in the culinary field.

Some positions you may work in as a Holistic Chef include:

No matter where you go after Bauman College, you will have earned more than just a career. Bauman College was built to share our knowledge and heal the world through better nutrition. You will combine that philosophy with a strong foundation of culinary skills and therapeutic nutrition to improve the health of your clients and your community

Join our growing industry and discover the rewarding, flexible career you’ve always wanted.

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I completed the Holistic Chef program and it was the best decision I could have made for myself. Since graduating my husband and I bought a Bed and Breakfast where I am now running my own business and cooking for guests with a variety of dietary preferences at Loganberry Inn. It had always been a dream of mine to own a B & B and graduating from the holistic chef program gave me the confidence and skills to pursue that dream.

The program was a great introduction to so many techniques, specialty diets, world flavors and traditions, business, and getting real world experience through the externship has proven to be a valuable addition to the program. The instructors are incredibly knowledgeable and truly want every student to succeed. This isn't like trying to learn off of YouTube videos, this is real life experience and training. Attending the weekly classes and staying on pace with the lessons and cooking labs is intense but once you graduate you will be amazed at everything you learned and can do. You will be "thinking like a chef" and able to pursue your own dream!

— Nanette King

Holistic Chef Graduate

Bauman College gave me a foundation and understanding of how to cook for chronic health conditions using alternative ingredients, plant based, seasonal, organic whole foods. This foundation was very important for me not only personally but in my professional career. The skills I learned help me to become a better cook and recipe developer. Through my recipes, I’m able to provide solutions for people who needed to live without allergens that could potentially harm them.

— Shahla Rashid

Holistic Chef Graduate

The curriculum is rich with value and learning and the instructors truly care that you make the most of your training. I found myself in exactly the right place, facing in the right direction with my career path stretching out before me in beautiful, satisfying ways.

— Jennifer Caroff

Holistic Chef Graduate

I’m blown away by how my education has up-leveled since graduating from Bauman College. My confidence with cooking has risen dramatically. The layout of the program, the deep-rooted education we’ve been taught has been much more than I ever could have dreamed of. We’ve gotten a MODERN CHEF’s dream education to be honest. Bauman has taught me how to source properly, how to cook using ingredients that are better for the body & support healing all while making food taste SO DANG GOOD!!!

— Nikki Martinez

Holistic Chef Graduate

One of the best decisions I made was to enroll in the Culinary Arts program. I graduated with all the skills necessary to be successful as a Personal Chef, Cooking Instructor, and Caterer. Bauman's cooking instructors and staff are professional and supportive. The curriculum is comprehensive, unique, and practical. I immediately found employment as a personal chef to pro athletes as well as clients with health challenges. The knowledge and experience that I walked away with opened many doors which allowed me to explore different aspects of cooking including writing, recipe development, and meal plans. The opportunities are endless and the satisfaction of supporting others on their health journeys through food is magical. I really appreciate all the health benefits that my family and I have enjoyed from everything I learned at Bauman College.

— Shannon Marie

Holistic Chef Graduate

I graduated from the Natural Chef program a couple of years ago and it was a great experience for me. It was an intense and very complete program where we learned how to work around a commercial kitchen, safety, making healthy and nutritious food, new ingredients and tips from our instructors and International Cuisine. I would probably just liked to have known more about the work load before enrolling so I could have organized my time in a different way but it was worth the work.

Everything I learned in the program has helped me at two jobs already.

— Paty Stewart

Holistic Chef Graduate

I am a recent graduate Class of November 2021 Holistic Chef. It was very challenging initially, but at the end of my journey, I'm very thankful to tough it out. I had a great mentor/instructor Chef Porsche, who is very supportive and won't let you give up on yourself. If you have a love for cooking and enjoy cooking for people, Bauman is a great place to develop your culinary skills. Thank you again, Chef Porsche and the very supportive administration staff at Bauman College.

— Miriam Jones

Holistic Chef Graduate

Is a Rewarding Career as a Holistic Chef Right for You?

If you’re interested in learning more about a career as a Holistic Chef and exploring whether this is the right path for you, complete the “Get the Details” form to receive more information.

A helpful Bauman College admissions representative will answer all of your questions, from program details to career opportunities, and will help you discover the best option for you.

Fill out the Get the Details form to learn more about our 12-month, 100% online + industry externship Holistic Chef Culinary Program.