TikTok viewers know Tineke “Tini” Younger as the real one with the really delicious macaroni and cheese recipe.
And while she has shared a pretty delicious-looking mac and cheese, many people don’t know that she was one of the chefs showing off their skills in season two of Gordon Ramsey’s Next Level Chef.
Tineke, or “Tini,” competed against seventeen other contestants for a quarter of a million dollars in prize money. Tini was a fierce competitor, making it all the way to episode eleven before being eliminated. Throughout the competition, she competed on Top Chef alumn Richard Blais’s team in various cooking challenges, even winning best dish twice and one intense head-to-head cook-off.
She shared on the show that she wasn’t the best student in high school, and was diagnosed with a learning disability. She started working fast food in high school, and soon found that her strengths were actually in the kitchen. She started sharing recipes on social media that she liked to make for her boyfriend and eventually blew up, even coming out with her own cookbook.
After competing on Next Level Chef, Tineke continues to showcase her impressive cooking skills on TikTok. The 22-year-old makes everything from prime rib to Dutch donuts. One recipe that has gone particularly viral is her macaroni and cheese, which features two and a half pounds of hand-shredded cheese. The video has almost 90 million views on TikTok and the recipe has earned approval from the masses.
In addition to her social media success, Tini was recruited to be one of the featured chefs on Gordon Ramsey’s cooking show YouTube Originals, Bite. She’s featured many times on the YouTube channel making anything from a Thanksgiving feast to a homemade chicken sandwich.
Tini has also taken her cooking successes on the road and was featured in Next Level Tastescape. The meetup was sponsored by the culinary social media app Pepper and included other chefs from across your favorite network cooking shows.
At the end of the day, her viral, next-level cooking skills started with her showcasing meals she loved to make for her boyfriend, probably why the name of her cookbook is Cooking for My Boyfriend. And while Tini doesn’t often share personal details and updates about her life, she did let her audience know that she will now be cooking for her fiancé.
And, of course, her 6.6 million TikTok followers.
It’s unclear what exactly will be next in the culinary world of Tini Younger, but you can almost guarantee that her fans will be waiting with bated breath — and rumbling stomachs.
