Cooking with Kids: Important Life Skills and Family Bonding

Cooking with kids will ensure they learn the skills they need to thrive as healthy adults. Kids who are comfortable in the kitchen are more likely to cook at home as adults and make meals from scratch.

When a meal is made from scratch, you choose your ingredients and know exactly what you’re eating. Kids who learn to cook are also more likely to make their own food instead of asking you to make it for them. It’s a win-win!

1. A fun way to get your kids involved in the kitchen is to have the family pick a recipe. You can be daring and pick a recipe that you’ve never made and is outside of your cooking comfort zone and see what happens (this would be a great way to show kids that learning something new sometimes involves failure, and that’s okay). Or you can pick one that you or your spouse has made many times. Just make sure it’s a recipe the whole family agrees on.
2. Once you have your recipe, make a list of the ingredients and see if you have any of them at home already. If not, see if you can find a local farm that grows what you’re looking for and go harvest the ingredients yourself, or at least buy directly from the farmer. If this isn’t an option, look for a local farmer’s market.
3. Take the whole family to the farmer’s market and have a mini scavenger hunt for the ingredients. This is a great time to teach your kids how to pick the best produce. If you don’t know how to tell if something is ripe or what to look for when picking a particular food, ask the farmer. They’ll most likely be happy to explain it to you.

   If visiting a farm or going to a farmer’s market isn’t possible, head to your grocery store and have your kids help you find all the ingredients. Make sure you explain how you select items at the store and then let your kids pick out everything.

4. Once you’re home and ready to make your meal, divvy up the tasks. You can make your time cooking with kids even more fun by turning on some music. Depending on the age of your kids, they can wash vegetables, cut ingredients up, measure dry goods, help with the cooking, and/or do some of the cooking.
5. Depending on what recipe you’re making, you can all work together or make different parts of the meal. However your family splits up making the meal, your kids will be learning valuable life skills. And then you’ll get to enjoy the meal you made together as a family. There’s nothing better than good food and family bonding! Bon appétit!