One dish at a time was first

Bertinelli a kid foodie

Long before acting became her bread and butter, Valerie Bertinelli fell in love with another passion: cooking.

The star, who rose to fame in the mid-1970s on “One Day at a Time,” watched her mother and extended family whip up different dishes as a child and quickly became enamored by it.

She’s gotten to put her culinary enthusiasm to good use in recent years as host of the Food Network shows “Valerie’s Home Cooking” and “Kids Baking Championship” — and is now adding another to the menu with her new competition series “Family Food Showdown.”

“I’ve loved cooking since before acting, and I’ve been acting since I was 11,” Bertinelli told the Daily News.

“I learned how to cook at a very young age, like 6 years old,” she said. “I don’t know that I did much cooking when I was 6, but I watched a lot of it. Then I think my mom taught me to make lasagna when I was like 9 or 10. I’ve always loved cooking. It’s always fascinated me.”

Bertinelli’s new series, which premieres Sunday on Food Network at 8 p.m., centers on two families competing against each other in three rounds of cooking challenges every episode.

Unlike Bertinelli’s other competition show “Kids Baking Championship,” which crowns one winner at the end of the season, “Family Food Showdown” features new families each week — with one being named the victor at the end of every show.

“You really get to learn why they’re there, where their passion for cooking comes from, why they have a restaurant, why they have a catering company,” Bertinelli said of the families. “What’s going wrong? What’s going right? Why do they need the money? Why do they need the publicity? You get to really dive deep into these families, and I love it.”

Bertinelli — who made her debut on “One Day at a Time” as a teenager, playing Barbara Cooper — did a number of TV movies after that long-running sitcom came to an end in 1984.

She has since appeared on several other series as well, including starring on “Hot in Cleveland” from 2010 to 2015, but has not acted since that show ended.

Bertinelli began her first two Food Network programs in 2015 — and describes hosting culinary shows as “ridiculously comfortable.”

“I was never quite comfortable acting, except in ‘Hot in Cleveland,’ where I felt like I was just hanging out with my family. … Now I’m just able to be me and cook, and it feels like the cameras aren’t even really there. It’s just part of who I am,” Bertinelli explains.

“Acting, I never felt like I was good enough for the part, and (felt) I wasn’t giving the writers what they wanted and what they imagined for the part,” she said. “But with this, sometimes I feel like I’m not giving the producer or the director exactly what they want, but the good thing about that is they can tell me in my ear exactly what they need from me.”

Bertinelli wants to make sure she gives the contestants on “Family Food Showdown” everything they need to succeed as well.

“I try to bring them comfort,” Bertinelli said of her goals as host, “and try to help their nerves along so that they can really put forth their best dishes.”