5 Ways to Get Your Kids Involved in the Kitchen*

Over the last few months my daughter has taken an interest in helping in the kitchen, not me specifically but my mum (our kitchen isn’t exactly kid friendly). However I still love to see it! I didn’t learn to cook until I left home at 18 and had absolutely no life skills except beans on toast and fairy cakes. Everything I know I’ve taught myself from cookbooks (’cause we’re talking 15 years ago now and youtube was just starting out!) I think it’s so important to get kids involved in the kitchen, but I know for many they just like their food to magically appear on the table in front of them! But here are some ways to make a start;

Cookery Games

Over the holiday period my daughter has really enjoyed playing some cooking inspired games on the Culinary Schools site. The majority of them were great for her age (she’s nearly 10) and she could play without assistance. She particularly liked Katotic Kitchen and Cake Design. In fact, she spent hours playing Cake Design as it worked really well on her iPad and one of the reasons she got into wanting to help in the kitchen is because she loved The Great British Bake Off. So it just proves that media does influence kids as much as it does adults, maybe not through social media but what they watch and what they play. What I love about Culinary Schools collection of games as they have some with very familiar characters, from Spongebob to Scooby Doo and even DC Super Hero Girls which is a show she loves. There are so many games on the site, and we tried a lot of them and even I got involved due to the great selection that work on your phone. The best part, they’re all free! No need to download apps to play. And a little extra shout out to Culinary Schools for some great blog posts for you to read while your kid is having some fun with the free games!

(This one is great for your phone!)

Go Through Cookbooks

When my mum started with my daughter after she asked to bake, was sitting down with cookbooks and deciding what she would like to try. This was amazing for discussing what ingredients were needed and cooking time as it’s helped her understand that often she can’t just say to me “i’m hungry” and food magically appears. She can see the cooking and prep time, and see what all goes into it. Which has been both good and bad, because we had the “I didn’t know there was carrot in spag bol” conversation and now she won’t eat it, thankfully it’s the only one that’s caused an issue and I guess now I just won’t put carrot in it! She has a list of meals now she wants to help make, so I guess that’s her new years resolution sorted!

Order a Recipe Box

If you’re not the type that keeps in cookery books, you could always try a subscription box? We swore by them during lockdown as it was nice to get good food and keep me busy with cooking it. You select recipes to try and then all the ingredients come measured out. Sit down with your kid and go through the recipes that are available, choosing something they’d like to help make and eat. There are loads of different recipe boxes on the market these days, but my favourite is still Gousto and at the moment you can get a whopping 65% off your first box if you sign up with my link (I also get £20, which would be super helpful for me at the moment, so I just want to be upfront about that!) The recipe cards are great to go back to as well if your resolution has been meal planning and you can even change it slightly to suit your family’s taste.

Help with the Grocery Shopping

Look, I get it, grocery shopping with a kid (or plural) is a very stressful and quite often, awful experience. I’ve been there. I have almost 10 years of single parenting under my belt and shopping has always been a headache but maybe, just maybe putting the whole “being involved” spin on it might ease it a bit. Once you’ve had them help meal plan, get them to do the list and then once you’re in the supermarket, make a game of gathering what is on it. Maybe bribe them with a sweet at the end, or maybe they’ll just be happy to have taken part in the odious chore! Not only that, it might stop them slipping extra things into the trolley as they’re so busy gathering what is on the list!

Make it Fun

But mostly, just make it fun. Getting your kid involved in all aspects of food and meal times could help in so many ways from encouraging them to eat more, try new things and even with the tidying up afterwards (my kid loves washing up, who knew?!) And it’s another way you can really set them up for life!