Don’t Cook With Your Kids (Until You’ve Done This First)
There’s a moment, right after I’ve cleaned the kitchen, floors mopped, counters spotless, when my daughter says, “Can I help you make dinner?” And I pause, because I know what’s coming.
Flour on the countertop. A trail of flax seeds that somehow makes it from the bowl to every corner of the floor. The egg that she cracks with glee and that sometimes slides off the counter in slow motion and lands with a splat. Side bar: why are raw eggs so hard to clean up?!
Cooking with kids isn’t about keeping things tidy. It can’t be. And it isn’t something I recommend doing when you’re frazzled, or just finished wiping down the whole house, or are running on empty and secretly hoping for a peaceful evening. Because it tests your patience.
Cooking together - properly together - isn’t about perfection. It’s about curiosity. About connection. It’s about giving your child the space to see what happens when a carrot goes from fresh, crunchy, and raw to carmelized in the pan. It’s about letting them nibble on mushrooms (raw and cooked), dip a spoon into a sauce before it’s done, and maybe even decide that they liked it better the first way.
And if you’re not in the headspace to roll with that mess and to meet the chaos with joy, it’s okay to say, “Not today.” It’s better to wait for the moment when you can lean in. Because that mindset shift makes all the difference.
Here’s what works for me: I start our cooking session about an hour before dinner. It becomes our snack time too. While we chop and stir, they nibble on anything going into the meal—pepper strips, peas, cherry tomatoes. No pressure, just play. And by the time we sit down at the table, if she doesn’t want to eat what we’ve made? That’s fine. She’s already had her vegetables, and we got to spend that time together.
If the only goal is to get food on the table, it’s faster to do it alone. But if the goal is to raise kids who feel confident, curious, and connected to what they eat, then we must make space for the spills and the side commentary, for the extra-long pauses to lick the spoon, and I guess, even for the broken eggs.
5 Ways to Set Yourself (and Your Kids) Up for a Great Cooking Session
1. Clear the counter first.
Set up a clean work surface, kitchen table or countertop, and give your child their own space to work. This could mean their own chopping board, bowl or utensil. They’ll feel like a real cook, not just your assistant. It also means you won’t be scrambling for space when the mess inevitably begins.
2. Match the tools to the kid.
Little hands do best with tools they can handle. Invest in a kid-safe knife (those plastic ones are great), a small peeler, or even a mini grater. And if you have a peeler or whisk, they’ll want one too. Two sets = fewer meltdowns = more cooking done.
3. Bring them up to your level.
If they can’t reach the counter safely and comfortably, the whole thing gets frustrating fast. A sturdy stool or step ladder makes a huge difference. Bonus: they’ll feel more grown up being “on your level.”
4. Let ingredients surprise them.
Choose recipes with ingredients they haven’t tried raw before - like mushrooms, courgette, or fennel. Cooking becomes more than meal prep; it turns into a sensory experiment. Have them taste raw vs cooked and describe the difference. It builds confidence and vocabulary around food. A child that can describe to you what they like or dislike about food is immeasurably easier to feed.
5. Snack as you go.
Cooking time is snack time in our house. Set a bowl out and let them graze on veggies as you cut them. I find that sometimes the size of the cut changes their engagement with the food. My daughter loves celery in a tiny dice but won’t eat it in stick. If they’ve nibbled a rainbow while cooking, the mealtime becomes a bonus, not a battleground.
Want to dig deeper into cooking with kids, or want a list of my go-to recipes that actually work in a shared kitchen? Hit reply and let me know. I’d love to hear what’s working (and what’s messy) in your kitchen too.
