It might be early in the new year, but Masterchef fans are already cheering because not only is the mouth-watering program coming back to Aussie TV, but it’s bringing with it a week full of Nigella Lawson!

That’s right folks, the saucy temptress of a chef has arrived down under to shoot a whole week’s worth of episodes, giving the typical favourite week with Marco Pierre White a run for its money.

“I can’t think of a better way of starting the new year,” Lawson told News Corp. “MasterChef Australia is such a great program, and so passionately committed to good food, that I didn’t have to think twice when I was invited to be part of this season.”

Lawson has appeared once before on the reality cooking show, which had more than two million foodie fans tune in for its 2015 finale, and said she is excited to join cravat-wearing, fancy-pants Matt Preston, and the other two judges (typically not in patterned pants) in the show’s eighth season.

For Ten, adding Lawson to their celebrity chef rotation roster for 2016 was a coup, given the ratings boost that chefs Marco Pierre White and Heston Blumenthaal (both of whom will be back again this year, obviously) delivered in 2015.

Masterchef was a key player in giving Ten top advertising dollars last year as well, and no doubt the network hopes that signing on Lawson will only help to bring home more of that delicious bacon, cooked to perfection and probably smothered in something we can’t pronounce.

“We’re very excited to have her,” Network Ten chief programming officer Beverley McGarvey told News Corp.

“Our top 24 (contestants) are a really interesting group. The quality of the cooking is right up there and the characters are very interesting as well.”