Learning how to cook is an important skill for individuals of all ages. You don’t want to send your little ones off to college when they don’t know how to boil water.
Here is how your children can help in the kitchen broken down by age.
Preschoolers (Age 2-5)
Even preschoolers can help in the kitchen. Not everything involves the use of knives or frying pans. Your preschoolers can help by
- Stirring pancake batter
- Rinsing and scrubbing fresh fruit and vegetables.
- Pouring cold liquid ingredients
- Preparing their own PB&J sandwiches
- Mashing potatoes
- Making biscuits or cookies with cookie cutters
- Measuring dry ingredients
Elementary School (6-9)
Now that your children have grown a bit they candle some of the messier ingredients and kitchen instruments. Including,
- Whisking eggs for an omelet
- Frosting for cupcakes and cookies
- Mixing together cookie dough and brownies
- Opening cans with a can opener
- Grating cheese
- Peeling potatoes
- Melting chocolate in the microwave
- Boiling eggs or pasta
- Making grilled cheese sandwiches
- Frying eggs over easy
Tweens (10-12)
Now is the time to work on basic knife skills and putting together recipes.
- Trimming and slicing vegetables
- Placing food in the oven and removing them
- Working with egg timers and thermometers
- Baking bread and muffins
- Kneading dough for pizza or bread
- Cooking soup
- Using specialty items like a panini press or waffle maker
- Steaming rice
- Cooking pancakes
- Frying hamburgers
Teenagers (13-16)
By the time your children reach adolescence they can do everything in the kitchen but open a bottle of wine for drinking! Here are the cooking skills to teach teenagers.
- Knife skills with sharp blade like chopping and mincing
- Baking complicated yeast dough like pastry or pizza
- Making risotto
- Marinating meat
- Panfrying food like steak or chicken
- Grilling
- Using a deep fryer