Kelly Ngoc Mac rates her kitchen skills as low. But as a contestant on “Worst Cooks in America,” she faced an additional challenge. She’s vegan.

In the opening episode of Season 18, which aired this week on the Food Network, she was required to make a chicken skin sandwich.

“I silently prayed for the bird. It’s just bad karma,” she said in a phone interview.

Mac, 55, is a Southern California fitness instructor who described herself as “the little old lady from Pasadena.” But she said she was born in Vietnam and escaped the country with her family in the first wave of boat people in 1975.

They settled in New York before she made her way to the West Coast. So taping “Worst Cooks” in Manhattan was like a homecoming for her.

Before the show, her culinary skills ran toward opening bags of salad mix and bottles of dressing. To prepare for her audition reel, she made chicken pho and had a friend taste it. She could tell from the look on his face that she was “Worst Cooks” material.

She said the show picked her to be among 16 contestants who were sequestered for the duration of the taping or their elimination, whichever came first.

Mac is back in California, so her taping is done, but she can’t reveal her outcome.

But her mentor on the show, James Beard Award winner Alton Brown, took her to task for not following his skin sandwich recipe and came close to eliminating her in episode one. She said her fighting spirit kept her on the show.

“I was like a lint he could just not get off of him. Like a stain. Even Clorox couldn’t get rid of me.”

This season of “Worst Cooks” will continue until March 8 with new contestants eliminated each episode. The winner will be expected to prepare a restaurant-quality meal.

Mac said she is serious about learning how to cook and learned some basics from Brown, such as what knives to use in the kitchen.

“In our country you get one knife, and you deal with it,” she said. “It’s funny how adults like us get through life without knowing how to cook properly.”

Mac is involved with another network, Little Saigon TV, and said she will be part of its upcoming celebrations for Tet, Vietnamese New Year, in Orange County and talking up “Worst Cooks” while she’s there.

She said Southern California is a good place to stay in touch with her roots.

“I’m so grateful. It’s like going to Vietnam without leaving America.”

Episode 2 of “Worst Cooks” airs at 9 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 12. The challenge is salads, followed by a Chinese New Year episode on Jan. 19.

Information: foodnetwork.com/shows/worst-cooks-in-america