Do you have a little one that has always loved “helping out” in the kitchen? Even if their help hasn’t always been helpful, cooking with your kids is a wonderful bonding experience. As they get older, it should be a learning experience as well. If you’ve been searching for fun, safe, and easy dishes to teach your kids some valuable kitchen skills, check out these tips and recipes.
Quick Tips for Teaching Kids to Cook
The benefits of teaching your child to cook are numerous. They’ll feel more confident in themselves, and it will help them learn to be independent later on. Plus, if they can prepare themselves a snack that’s one less thing for you to do. With that being said, there are a few things to keep in mind as you start this learning journey.
- Choose age-appropriate tasks and recipes. It’s never too early to get started and things that seem like a simple task to us are a feat of mastery for our little ones. Just popping a piece of toast in the toaster is a learning experience for a three-year-old.
- Be prepared for big messes. It’s a good idea to teach kids how to clean alongside their early cooking lessons. Although, there will still be a lot of big messes to manage at the beginning.
- Teach cooking tasks first. When they are too young to handle a whole recipe, you can teach things like how to stir batter, mash potatoes with a masher, or use a cookie-cutter.
- Have fun. If it’s not a fun activity, kids won’t want to participate. So, remember to keep your cooking lessons light and fun.
Simple Recipes for Little Ones
Try these recipes for younger children and be sure not to leave them unattended in the kitchen.
- Toast and spread
- Smoothies
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Zipper Bag Fruit Salad
- Mashed potatoes – You’ll need to do all of the knife work for this one, but your little one will have a ton of fun smashing the potatoes with a masher.
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Recipes for Older Kids
Once your children are a little older they can graduate to more advanced recipes and learn the basics of being independent cooks. Try these recipes for your older chefs in training.
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