Three Ways to Have Fun in The Kitchen With Your Kids

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Constantly coming up with new fun activities to do with your children can be a challenge. Get them keen on cooking and turn a daily chore into an exciting family adventure. And it’s educational, too: teaching your children to cook for themselves will mean they’re more likely to eat healthy food when they leave home. Every Mum knows that the only way to keep kids interested is to add a dash of fun, and cooking is no exception. Try these ideas and your kids will be gourmets in no time!

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Keep It Simple At First

Complex recipes and elaborate techniques will only intimidate little ones. Rather, lure them in by giving them the chance to do simple tasks like rinsing vegetables or pressing ‘start’ on the microwave. This might sound boring, but think like a kid for a second: imagine how much fun can be had just sifting flour or cracking an egg. Rather than overwhelm your children with the exactitude and discipline required to follow recipes, let them get comfortable in the kitchen first. They’ll start asking for more responsibility as they watch you and become more confident. If your children are a little older they may be competent enough to manage simple dinners or snacks. Get them boiling pasta and mashing potatoes, but don’t forget to keep it fun, or you’ll soon lose them. 

Get Creative

Recipes are handy things, but they can put a damper on creativity, which means the fun goes out of it. As far as possible, let kids be creative when it comes to ingredients and methods. For example, find new ways to use your cookie cutters, like pouring your crumpet batter into a star shape. Decorating cakes and adding toppings to pizzas are perfect arenas for creativity. Who says apple can’t go on a pizza? (Let’s be honest, whoever came up with the Hawaiian pizza had to have been a kid… and a genius!)

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Get Messy!

What kid doesn’t love plunging their hands into a bowl of chocolate icing? When you’re little, getting your hands dirty is short-hand for fun, and learning to cook presents plenty of opportunities. Separating eggs with their fingers is gooey and exciting. The key here is reminding yourself not to stress about the results: an eggshell or two can be fished out (this tricky task can keep a child occupied for hours!) and if you get a splatter of yolk in with the whites, who cares if the cake doesn’t rise as well as it would if you were cooking alone? The point is to have fun and enjoy messing around with food. Flattening out pastry or cookie dough can create a lovely crumbly mess, too. If you’re a bit of a clean freak, prepare yourself for a little more mess than usual, but remember that messes are part of the joy of cooking. And believe it or not, cleaning up can be fun, too. Once you’re kitted out in your rubber gloves and wielding your sprays, see if you don’t have fun tackling the mess as a team. 

Whether your child is old enough to be a kitchen whiz, or only little, getting them excited about cooking is a great way to spend time together.