Maine Chef Cara Stadler won the $1 million grand prize on Wednesday night’s finale of the CBS cooking competition “America’s Culinary Cup.”

Stadler beat out Michelin-starred Virginia chef Chris Morgan and Bocuse D’Or gold medalist chef Matt Peters to earn her winnings, the largest payout ever for a culinary contest show.

Stadler ultimately topped 15 other contenders over the course of the show’s 11 episodes. On the season closer, the show’s judges praised her zen-like calmness throughout the competition. Stadler was in her second trimester of pregnancy during the filming of the show, and she said that helped keep her stress in check.

“One of the huge advantages of being pregnant was that stress was not an option,” Stadler said Thursday morning. “What mattered was that I stay calm, because the baby’s life and (health) in womb was far more important than a million dollars.”

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Stadler is moving to Bath, England, this July with her wife and two young children. She said she’ll use the prize money in part to set up her family’s new home.

“There’s no Maserati in my future. Honestly, the money will go to buying a home when we move and not being so stressed financially,” she said. “I’ve toyed with the idea of buying a boat, but I’m too cheap and I need to put the money away for my kids and for our future. Financial stability is really the key.”

Stadler has been nominated for seven James Beard Awards, and was named a Food & Wine magazine Best New Chef in 2014. She was former chef and co-owner of Brunswick restaurants Tao Yuan and ZaoZe Cafe and Portland’s Bao Bao Dumpling House.

“Winning is incredible. What brings me the most pride is that while knowing I was a big fish in a smallish pond, I wondered if I could be a big fish in a bigger ocean,” Stadler said. “And can I keep up with people who are at the top of the game outside of Maine?

“Then you realize the state of Maine is full of just incredibly talented people,” she added. “You’re among some of the best chefs in the country here.”

On Wednesday night’s show, Peters was eliminated after the first challenge. The final challenge for Stadler and Morgan was to create a three-course meal where the first course represented their past, the second their present, and the last their future.

Stadler cooked a dim sum trio for her first course, representing her Chinese heritage. Her second course was a lobster dish that originated in show host Padma Lakshmi’s hometown in India. Her third course was a sweet dish she called “Tea Time” that was a fusion of her Asian roots and her wife’s English heritage; Lakshmi called the course “genius.” She topped Morgan by a total point tally of 278-274.

At the end of the show, Stadler noted that while she scored highly throughout the competition, she had not taken first place in any challenge to that point. “It feels really good to come in second for so long and then crush it at the end,” she told the camera.

“Don’t count out the pregnant women and don’t count out the moms,” Stadler said Thursday. “I think all the women on the show felt like we weren’t considered a threat, and we sort of got counted out, which was an error.”