Involving children in the kitchen and cooking can be done in many different ways. Here you can read my advice and tips adapted based on age.
2-4 years
- Let the child examine different ingredients, feel them and learn their names and tastes.
- Let the children help pick and wash fruits and vegetables.
- Explore food in a playful way using cookie cutters to make fun figures and shapes from pieces of fruit, pancakes or sandwiches.
- Help mix in ready-measured ingredients and stir/mix.
- Press garlic.
- Cut soft ingredients with child-friendly knives.
5-8 years
- Allow children to measure ingredients and use their math skills to count numbers and follow simple recipes with the help of an adult.
- Introduce some harder fruits and vegetables for the kids to share with kid-friendly knives. For example. apple, potato and carrot.
- Stir in pots, help fry (together with an adult).
- Season with various spices.
- Responsible for simple tasks such as making your own fruit skewers or your own sandwich.
- Take help of the children's creative side when serving and arranging food.
9 years +
- Involve them in meal planning. Write shopping lists, help make a meal plan for the week.
- Empower them to be creative in the kitchen by letting them come up with their own variations of recipes.
- Explain the steps in the recipe and the meaning of each ingredient.
- Put them in charge of cooking entire meals with your guidance. Start with simple recipes.
