Chef Dad: involving your kids in cooking

Whether your culinary skills are Ramsay-like or rubbish, cooking with your children is great fun. It’s also the perfect way to broaden the range of dishes they’ll eat, help them eat healthily and even teach them numeracy skills. Dan Roberts asks the experts for tips on cooking with kids.

Ever get stuck for something to do with your kids on a rainy Sunday? Why not teach them to cook? Children love messing about in the kitchen, and it’s the perfect way to teach them one of the key lifeskills they’ll need as they grow up.

• Lifeskills to teach your kids

Cooking with your kids is also a fun and painless way for them to learn about counting, weights and measures and, more importantly, how to have a healthy diet. Even the fussiest of eaters will wolf down something they’ve chosen the ingredients for, prepared and cooked themselves. And you can cook healthy versions of all their salt-, sugar- and additive-filled favourites – fish fingers and chips, for example.

We spoke to Claire Theobald, from the British Nutrition Foundation, and celebrity chef Annabel Karmel, author of numerous books on cooking with kids, to get a few pointers.

• Your child's health

First steps

"It’s a good idea to start with things that don’t require heat, like fruit salad," says Claire. "That gets across a basic understanding of how to prepare food safely, how to combine different ingredients, how to get equipment ready, and so on."

Especially with very young children, the key is to make cooking fun, letting them choose the ingredients and recipes themselves. As any parent who’s battled their way round a supermarket with toddlers knows only too well, kids love grabbing stuff from the shelves. Instead of strapping the little blighters into their buggy, Claire recommends nurturing their inner shopper.

"Take your children shopping for ingredients and let them choose stuff from the fruit and veg section," she says. "See what takes their interest, let them choose exotic-looking fruit and veg they want to try. When you get home, involve them in preparing it. Do little tasting sessions of the stuff they’ve chosen – the key is getting them enthusiastic and interested, so treat it like a game at first."

• If you have a garden, give your littl'un a little section of their own to grow things like tomatoes and strawberries.
• If you don’t, buy a Gro-Bag and plant them in that.
• If you have windowsills, you can grow cress. Kids love cooking and eating something they’ve grown themselves.

Kitchen safety

Obviously, if you’ve got kids as young as three or four mucking about in the kitchen, safety is key. It’s the same drill as toddler-proofing the house – get down on your hands and knees and look around the kitchen from their level:

• Are sharp knives and other utensils safely out of reach?
• What about potentially hazardous appliances, like hot kettles or coffee grinders?
• If you’re using the oven or hob, is there any danger of them getting burnt?
• Are the handles of simmering pots turned inward so they can’t be yanked off the stove?

Annabel Karmel has spent many years teaching her own children to cook and writing a series of books on cooking with kids. Although very hot on kitchen safety, she doesn’t believe in giving kids blunt knives to practise with.

"They can be worse than sharp ones, because kids can push too hard when chopping an apple, say – and blunt knives are still sharp enough to cut you," she says. "I think you’re better off showing them how to use a sharp knife when they’re ready, usually at seven or eight."

"Teach them very carefully how to handle a knife, putting them blade-down into the dishwasher, creating a bridge over things you’re cutting and walking with the blade pointing away from you."

Never assume that because you know something your child will too – for example, that hobs can still burn you even after the gas or electricity has been turned off.

Healthy cooking

If, like most kids, yours are fussy eaters, getting them to make their own food is a great way to expand their repertoire. The food you make together will also be much healthier than most supermarket-bought meals – 75 per cent of the saturated fat and salt kids eat comes from processed food, so give that a miss if possible.

"If your kids are fussy eaters, it’s a great idea to get them to make their own food – they’re much more likely to eat what they’ve cooked," says Annabel. "Get them to choose simple recipes from a cookery book so they can choose and make their own supper. Or get them to open a 'restaurant' in your house, where they invite people to pay for the healthy dishes they’ve cooked – kids love that!"

You can also make healthy versions of kiddie staples like pizzas, burgers and fish fingers. "Instead of buying frozen fish fingers, try making them at home," says Claire. "Cut up a piece of fish and make the breadcrumbs – you can even do a twist on it by adding some parmesan or herbs."

Dad dishes

Finally, why not create a few signature dishes that your kids will always associate with you? They can be anything really, as long as they’re things you came up with together and that they’ll remember cooking with you.

"Kids love spending time with their dad – and it’s a great bonding exercise to cook with dad in the kitchen," says Annabel. "Why not come up some with dad dishes you cook together, like pizza with a special topping? That’s something they’ll always want to cook with you."

Author

Dan Roberts is a feature-writer and columnist with over ten years’ experience of working for The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent, Daily Express and Mail on Sunday, as well as numerous national magazines. His areas of expertise include health, wellbeing, relationships, psychology and parenting. Dan also writes two monthly columns, including Diary of a Single Dad, a humorous but affectionate account of raising his ten-year-old son, Ben. The best of Dan’s work can be found on his website at www.dan-roberts.net

Your tips

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