Ethan Chlebowski

Ethan Chlebowski is a cook, and a popular YouTuber.

He has more than 1.7M subscribers on his eponymous YouTube channel.

Introduction-

Ethan Chlebowski hails from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States and has Polish roots.

His father, Jim Chlebowski, also loves cooking.

His mother, Susan Chlebowski, is a musician and has a YouTube channel, ‘Told You Sos.’ She works at Wild Roots Natural Learning.

Ethan has three brothers.

Love for food & cooking-

From a young age, Ethan has been a foodie, and he grew up by relishing Belish baked by his grandmother.

At 14, he learnt baking buns from his grandmother and used to collect recipe cards from her and thanks to this, he developed a passion for cooking.

And while studying in college, Ethan used to cook his own meals and cooking has been his stress buster and creative outlet.

Education-

Ethan did his schooling from Mifflinburg Area High School.

After completing his schooling, in 2012, he joined University of Pittsburgh to study Business Administration.

A year later, Ethan moved to the North Carolina State University to study Professional Golf Management.

Here, he signed up for a tax accounting competition sponsored by Deloitte and won the regional competition.

Then, as Ethan became interested in accounting, he dropped out of the Professional Golf Management and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in accounting concentration Information Systems.

He also studied for a minor in data analytics.

Career-

As Ethan didn’t want to do core accounting, he didn’t obtain his Certified Public Accountant (CPA) license.

Instead, right after passing out from college, he joined Deloitte Advisory as an analytics consultant.

As Ethan always loved cooking, cooking was his creative outlet on the weekends.

Prior to working at Deloitte, he worked as an intern at University of Pennsylvania Economics Department, Thomas, Judy & Tucker and Red Hat and he also worked as pro shop attendant and office assistant at Susquehanna Valley Country Club.

His YouTube channel-

‘Pro Home Cooks’ YouTube channel was the inspiration behind starting his own YouTube channel.

Ethan participated in a competition run by Pro Home Cooks and as he won the competition, his pizza video got featured on their channel and this inspired him to later start his own YouTube channel.

On 17 January 2017, he started his eponymous YouTube channel.

And Ethan started publishing videos onto it from June 2018 as a fun project.

Starting small-

Ethan shot his first 30 videos on his iPhone and only later, he bought a camera.

He learnt about operating cameras by watching videos on YouTube and by taking Skillshare courses on filming and cinematography.

He shoots his videos with Sony A6600 and Sony Alpha 7C cameras.

Becoming a full-time YouTuber-

As his job involved much travelling, Ethan decided not to continue it.

He wanted to apply to grad schools for studying master’s in analytics and another job because during that time, his YouTube channel wasn’t growing.

Then, Ethan was inspired by some very successful YouTubers like Peter McKinnon, Matt D’Avella and Jeff Nippard and he too wanted to become successful like them but in the food space.

Finally, he dropped his plans of attending the grad school and decided to use this savings and give himself a couple of years to work full-time on his YouTube channel.

On 14 June 2019, Ethan quit his well-paying job of a senior consultant and moved back to his home and started working as a full-time YouTuber.

In one of his YouTube videos, he collaborated with Andong, a popular German food YouTuber.

Becoming successful-

Ethan made a total of 114 videos in his first year of becoming a full-time YouTuber.

Then, a year and two weeks after becoming a full-time YouTuber, his number of subscribers skyrocketed from 20,000 to 100,000 and this made his channel successful.

As of December 2023, Ethan has 1.78M subscribers on his eponymous YouTube channel.

And has 145K followers on Instagram and 137K subscribers on ‘Ethan Chlebowski: Into the Multiverse’ YouTube channel.

Ethan has an eponymous website and a newsletter.

He earns from a variety of sources like advertisements on his YouTube videos, sponsorships and affiliate marketing.

His inspirations-

Ethan has been inspired by cooking YouTubers like Alton Brown and J. Kenji López-Alt.

He also appreciates the content of Joshua Weissman, Adam Ragusea, Dan Souza from What’s Eating Dan, Matty Matheson, Babish Culinary Universe and Internet Shaquille.

Self-taught cook-

Ethan is a completely self-taught home cooking nerd.

He learnt cooking from his family (his parents & grandmother) and by reading books and watching YouTube videos.

Ethan didn’t receive any formal training in cooking, nor did he work in any restaurant.

He recommends the following cookbooks-

Salt Fat Acid Heat.
The Food Lab.
The Professional Chef (he uses this book as a reference point).
Ruhlman’s Twenty.
On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen.
An Edge in the Kitchen.
Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling.

Ethan also recommends ‘Work Clean: The Life-changing Power of Mise-en-place to Organize Your Life, Work, and Mind’ book.

His weight loss journey-

In 2011, in his junior year of high school, Ethan was obese at 240 lbs.

As during that time, he was playing sports and was exercising, he lost 30 pounds by the time he reached senior year of high school.

Then, after graduating from high school, Ethan signed up for a 10-mile Tough Mudder race and started working out in order to prepare for the race and as a result his weight dropped to 185 pounds.

Then, he again gained weight in his college and work years.

While working at Deloitte, Ethan was around 205 pounds.

Then, he became serious about weight loss and fitness and started lowering his caloric intake by skipping his breakfasts.

And thanks to this, Ethan’s weight reduced to 170 pounds.

Then, he also started working out consistently, tracking calories and nutrition and thanks to this, his weight reduced to 157 pounds.

He recommends reading the ‘Understanding Healthy Eating: A Science-Based Guide to How Your Diet Affects Your Health’ book for weight loss.

In March 2022, Ethan shifted from the United States to Paris, France for a period of three and a half months and then returned to the United States.

So, how are you inspired by the success story of Ethan Chlebowski?

Share with me in the comment section below.