How to involve your children in making tasty, healthy meals from scratch
Children of different ages can do different tasks in the kitchen, with different levels of supervision. But with a little thought and imagination, you should be able to involve children of any age in making our recipes.
And don’t forget, cooking with children is about much more than the finished product. It’s a chance to spend some quality family time together – talking, laughing and experiencing new tastes and sensations.
Children also get to practice skills like reading, counting and using their hands carefully to chop and peel. We even use recipes to help children learn other languages, bring history to life and to find out about life in other countries.
Start simply: don’t do too much too soon, and build up to the more complicated dishes. As you and your children get more confident, you can use our recipe search to find hundreds of healthy and delicious recipes to try.
Here are some of our top tips for getting kids cooking:
- Allow plenty of time. Cooking with children can take up to twice as long as normal.
- Get organised. Make sure you have everything you need before you start.
- Check the recipe carefully and make a list of everything you need, including equipment
- Repeat after us: a bit of mess is OK. Don’t get stressed about it – it’s all part of the process. Clean up as you go and get kids to help with this too
- Who’s doing what? Put some thought into which cooking tasks your child will be able to do. To begin with, you may need to work this out by trial and error.
- If you’re cooking with more than one child, think about whether they’re going to take turns or have different jobs. A little bit of planning can save a lot of arguing!
- Keep things simple. Try our getting started recipes to get you going and get a feel for how much your children will be able to do
- Don’t panic if things go wrong. Even if your recipes don’t turn out like the pictures, you will have had fun and learnt some lessons for next time you try.
- All children have different levels of confidence and ability for cooking tasks (this can even change from day to day), so bear this in mind when planning a cooking session.
Activities for toddlers: one to five-year-olds
Children’s hand-eye coordination develops rapidly from the ages of one to five and can vary greatly between little ones of the same age. Your toddler will need close supervision and help with the activities below – particularly if they’re new to them.
As every parent knows only too well, children have a limited attention span at this age. So it’s a good idea to have another activity on hand, like colouring, to keep them busy if their attention wanders.
Great things for them to try:
- Pouring
- Washing
- Mixing (cool ingredients only)
- Sifting
- Rubbing-in
- Mashing
- Touching, smelling and tasting ingredients
- Tasting recipes
Ideas:
- Recipes which involve mixing, combining and assembling like our dips, bread, scones, muffins, layered fruit and yogurt pots work really well with younger children.
- Using their (clean) hands to squish berries to make compote is always a fun one!
- Choose soft fruit and veg (like bananas, strawberries, melon, cucumber and mushrooms) for children of this age to use. Cut them into sizes which are easy for small hands to hold.
Activities for six to 11-year-olds
With close supervision from you, children can now start to learn how to chop and peel safely – and feel like real chefs in the process!
Children are far more likely to eat food when they’ve helped to prepare it. This is a great way to get them trying new tastes and food textures in an environment where they feel comfortable.
But beware of trying to do too much. Things like chopping take a lot of concentration, so it’s better to stop before they get bored or make a mistake because they’re tired. Have an alternative activity at the ready whilst you finish up or do some of the tasks that they aren’t able to.
Great things for them to try:
- Weighing
- Measuring
- Washing
- Peeling
- Chopping
- Crushing
- Combining
- Mixing
- Whisking
- Squeezing
- Sifting
- Grating
- Rolling
- Rubbing-in
- Mashing
- Touching, smelling and tasting ingredients
- Tasting recipes
- Grilling
- Melting
- Boiling/simmering
Ideas:
- Get them decorating a pizza with as many different colours of vegetables as they can, or making a picture on their pizza using their toppings
- Link what they’re making with big events in the year – edible Christmas decorations, parkin for Bonfire Night or something scary (though not scary-tasting!) for Halloween.
Activities for teens: 12 to 19-year-olds
It’s particularly important that young people are eating a healthy, balanced diet to give them the energy and nutrients they need at this time when they’re growing up fast and busy at school, college or starting work.
With practice and supervision, teenagers should be able to complete all of the tasks required in our recipes. They may want to start experimenting with the quantities and types of herbs and spices used.
Your teenager might also want to take more of a leading role in the cooking. This is fine, as long as they’re well-versed on our food safety and hygiene rules and safe chopping and peeling techniques, and you’re still on hand to supervise.
Great things for them to try:
- Weighing
- Measuring
- Washing
- Peeling
- Chopping
- Crushing
- Combining
- Mixing
- Whisking
- Squeezing
- Sifting
- Grating
- Rolling
- Rubbing-in
- Mashing
- Touching, smelling and tasting ingredients
- Tasting recipes
- Adapting recipes
- Baking
- Grilling
- Melting
- Boiling/simmering
- Frying
- Carrying hot things from the oven
Ideas:
- Get your teenager cooking for their friends – choosing the recipes for an X-Factor night or end-of-exams party.
- Build up their confidence on the things they love to cook – if desserts are their thing, ask them if they’ll cook that fantastic cake they tried when you’ve got your friends coming over.
- Get them making their takeaway – try our pizza, Chinese and Indian recipes rather than spending a fortune at the chippy.
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