5 Easy Cooking Recipes for Kids

5 easy cooking recipes for kids. Each recipe is actually a group of recipes with helpful kid friendly cooking tips so 5 is actually 15 recipes or even more. Kids can cook most of these alone or with little help/supervision. Most of the recipes are vegan and many need no cooking at all! 

In my post about how to engage kids in the kitchen, I had mentioned about doing a list of kid friendly recipes to encourage cooking as an activity for children. Quarantine or no-quarantine, it is always a great idea to involve kids in cooking. My sister has these “cooking projects” with her kids when they will make chocolates, puddings, and fruit salads at home. My niece also has her own kids cooking apron and chef’s hat!

Why should you engage kids in cooking?

Cooking helps kids connect with food better and also develop healthier eating habits. Here are a 5 reasons why you should involve kids in cooking.

1. If they have cooked something, they are more likely to eat it without fuss! 
2. Cooking by themselves, makes kids curious about different ingredients. They want to smell them, taste them, and know more about them. For ex: Ask them to rub mint leaves with their fingers and then smell. The aroma is delightful! Mint simply grows from it’s stalk. You can plant one together to kindle an interest in gardening too!  
3. It is a great way to learn different lessons in art (plating, combining different colorful vegetables for salads), mathematics (measurements), geography (where does a recipe originate or an ingredient comes from) and science. Cooking is all about science — the rising of a cake, the reduction of a sauce, the release of juices when you add salt…
4. Helps them make healthier choices. As you switch ingredients in your home for healthier ones for example, jaggery instead of sugar, or whole wheat instead of all-purpose white flour; kids also learn to make healthier choices. 
5. It is FUN! Have you ever licked a bowl of cake/cookie dough? or stood with a bar of chocolate wondering whether to eat or put it in the.

I start with no heat, non-fire cooking for kids recipes and slowly move to still easy but minimal cooking required recipes. Young kids will definitely need help and/or supervision. Older kids can start with simple no-cook recipes and slowly move on the more involved recipes. 

Easy Smoothie Recipes for kids

Making smoothies is fun for both kids and adults — just put everything in a blender and go whizzzzz! Since it is the season, try simple mango smoothies, banana smoothies, or all time favorite berry smoothies.

Kid friendly cooking tip: You can make ahead individual smoothie packs with different washed and cut fruits in a freezer bag and freeze. Ex: Place ½ cup mixed berries, ½ a banana, and ½ cup mango  in one bag and freeze. To make a smoothie, kids can simply put all contents in blender, add some water/vegan milk (or regular milk) if required and blend.

No cooking required Sandwiches

Cold sandwiches are great for breakfast, lunch boxes, and also snack. When we were kids, I remember me and my sister used to make simple tomato-cucumber sliced sandwiches whenever we got hungry and mom wasn’t at home. Two sides of bread, a layer of cucumber, and a layer of tomato with some salt and pepper sprinkling. That’s it! 

If there is boiled potato and green chutney, they can mash the chutney and boiled potato to make an easy potato-chutney sandwich.

Older kids can toast the bread or even grill the sandwich. 

Kid friendly cooking tip: Keep sliced/chopped cucumbers, tomatoes, and other sandwich friendly vegetables in an air tight food container in fridge (for max a day). You can also keep a few spreads handy for them to use. 

Salads

Salads are super fun to make with kids. They especially love the salad spinner! 🙂 and also tossing raw colorful vegetables together. Teach them how to combine different course and textures in a bowl like adding some peppers for crunch and some tomatoes for juice. Teach them to experiment like throwing in some pomegranate seeds for a burst of color or someThey can make simple salad dressings like this 3-ingredient lemon dressing.

Kid friendly cooking tip: Just like with cold sandwiches, you can keep some chopped salad veggies in the fridge like carrots, cabbage, cucumbers, peppers etc and also bags of salad leaves. 

Roasted vegetable sides

Sides or snack, roasted vegetables are always good to have on the table. If you child can manage the oven a little, roasted vegetables are a good way to start them on meal cooking. They are still away from fire/heat of the stove and you can handle the putting inside and taking the tray out of oven part. I love how roasted vegetables also allow for so much experimentation in the spice combinations, thus making them try different spices and how they interact with different vegetables.

It might also give you a chance to try roasted potato wedges instead of fries!

Kid friendly cooking tip: Make the spice rubs for roasting beforehand. Label them with all spices indicated and ask your children to try different options.

Desserts 

I covered quite a few of these recipes in the previous post on how can kids help in the kitchen. Making cookies, cakes, and cupcakes is probably the favorite cooking activity for every kid because the result at the end of it is so sweet and so satisfying! It also builds patience because you do need to wait for the oven to do it’s magic which makes it even more desirable :-). Since cookies take the least amount of time in the oven, I feel they are the best recipes if your kids are just starting.

Enjoy these simple eggless cookies recipes with your children:

No bake Nutella and Oatmeal Cookies 

Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies — 3 kinds of chocolates! Need I say more? 😀

Fudgy-gooey Eggless Chocolate Brownies

Kid friendly cooking tip: Have fun, lick the bowl, and if it gets a little messy with flour on the floor or face, have a laugh! [and then clean together :p]

Connect with me over recipes for kids!

How are you keeping kids busy during the lockdown period? From next week, even online schools are closing for summer break. How about starting a ‘cooking project’ with your kids? It will be so much fun!

Write to me if you like the ideas in this post or if you have ideas and suggestions to share. If you try cooking with your kids in the kitchen, I would love to know! Tag your picture with #weekendkitchen on instagram or connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Pinterest. Or join our newest journey into Recipe Videos.

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