5 ways to get your kids excited about cooking
May 5, 2023
by Christina Eat Cooking with kids is a great way to instil an interest in food and healthy eating habits from a young age, especially if you’ve got picky eaters. Getting your kids in the kitchen might sound tricky, but learning this important life skill early on is a recipe for their success later in life.
With the right approach and a few tips and tricks up your sleeves, you and your kids will be having a blast in the kitchen in no time.
Let them pick the recipes
Taking the time to sit down together and pick out your recipes, whether from a cookbook or the HelloFresh app, can give your child a sense of ownership over what they cook and eat. It gives them a chance to look at what goes into a recipe and pick something they’re interested in. Maybe one week, that’ll be a new and exciting dish they’ve never tried, and the next, it’ll be all familiar flavours.
With the HelloFresh app, you can choose from a range of Kid-Friendly recipes. They’re always delicious family favourites with flavours kids love. But the best thing is: they’re easy to cook, so your little ones can get involved without you pulling your hair out.
Check out this Kid-Friendly recipe even picky eaters will love: Pork Sausages & Easy-Prep Cheesy Roast Veg
Make it fun, not a chore
There are so many fun cooking activities for kids to get inspired in the kitchen and excited about cooking. It could be as simple as making smiley faces out of pizza toppings. Or you could go all-out by turning taco night into a full-on Mexican fiesta, complete with fun music and homemade decorations to enjoy while you cook and eat.
Check out this Kid-Friendly recipe, perfect for taco night: Quick Tex-Mex Pork Tacos with Charred Corn & Avocado Salsa
Make peace with the chaos
You can pick the perfect kid-friendly recipe, but you can’t control the mess. Young kids won’t have the fine motor skills and judgement of a seasoned chef. That’s ok! Sticky hands and floury benchtops are half the fun of cooking with kids. Plus, it’s an excellent opportunity to teach them the importance of cleaning up.
Give them their own tools
Kids love to feel independent. Giving them their own tools can help them feel more in control in the kitchen. It gives them a sense of ownership over their cooking projects and makes them feel like they’re playing an important role in the process.
When you cook with kids, giving them their own colourful tools, sometimes even related to their favourite show or movie, can make a world of difference. Something as simple as their own spatula or mixing spoon can be a motivator to get cooking. An added benefit is that cooking tools for kids are designed to be safer and more manageable for their smaller hands.
Get them hands-on
Most kid-friendly recipes are, of course, packed with flavours kids love. But you’ll also find that many kid-friendly recipes make it easy for kids to get involved in the cooking process. Kids develop a sense of accomplishment in the food they create by chopping, stirring and shaping foods like meatballs. They can discover new textures, flavours and ingredients and express their creativity through these exciting new mediums. Hands-on cooking with kids is also a great way to teach maths, like measurements and addition, and science, like nutrition, in a relaxed and practical environment.
Check out this Kid-Friendly meatball recipe: One-Dish Baked Pork Meatballs & Toasted Ciabatta
Like what you see?
HelloFresh makes cooking with kids easy with our range of Kid-Friendly recipes. Not only are they full of dinnertime classics even picky eaters will love, but they’re also quick, easy and super fun to cook. Take a peek at our upcoming menu and see all the delicious Kid-Friendly recipes your family could enjoy!
