Throughout the years, I've learned that kids are much more capable of helping in the kitchen than most parents tend to give them credit. My kids have been helping me bake and cook since they were both around 2 years old. When I first wrote this article, they were ages 5 and 8, and were already pretty comfortable in the kitchen. Now they are almost 13 and 15, and are pretty self-sufficient.
I'm often asked what sort of activities and tasks my kids help with in the kitchen.
Here are the Top 10 Kid-Friendly Kitchen Tasks:
1. Reading recipes. I have both kids read recipe ingredients and steps out aloud throughout the cooking and baking process. Especially if there is a step that I don't feel comfortable with them managing yet (like frying over hot oil), I will ask them to read the steps aloud so they are still involved.
2. Cut fruit, onions, peppers, and other ingredients that require rough chopping (versus mincing). A lot of parents I know are afraid to get kids involved with this step early on, but if you start them young using kid-friendly tools, it's a great opportunity to teach them the right way to cut fruits and veggies, so that they will feel comfortable handling these tasks and thus also be less likely to hurt themselves.
My kids use Demarle cake knives (seen in the photo below) to cut fruit, slice sandwiches in half, etc. They are safe enough for little hands and just sharp enough to make decent cuts into fruit & most veggies (not sharp enough for carrots though).
{Bliss Boy slicing onions, age 6}
3. Microwave ingredients. This is something our 8-year-old can do more easily than our 5-year-old daughter, but even she can do this with some coaching. Our microwave is built into our kitchen wall pretty high, so the kids grab a kitchen counter stool to reach it, but they can still enter the time then start and stop the microwave. Definitely teach them to wait until items have cooled slightly or use oven mitts when taking hot items out of the microwave. Also, I personally would only allow my youngest to do this task while I'm in the same room/area.
4. Knead and roll out dough. Have you seen kids play with playdough? It's the same joy you see when kids get the chance to knead dough for pizza, cookies, biscuits, or pies. They also love using a rolling pin and it helps them learn how to manage their weight on the rolling pin in order to roll out the dough evenly.
5. Measure out dry ingredients. We bake a lot in our house, and this is the first thing my kids learned to do when they were each around 2 years old.
{Bliss Boy measuring flour, age 5}
6. Whisk and stir both wet and dry mixes. The kids used to fight over this task. There's something very satisfactory about watching a bunch of ingredients come together, I suppose. :)
{Bliss Girl, age 3, whisking a brownie mixture}
7. Use cookie cutters to cut out cookie, biscuit, donut, and sandwich shapes. Let them choose the shapes. This is especially a great way to get the younger ones involved. So much fun!
8. Top their own pizzas. Kids love to not only choose their own toppings, but to also place them on the pizzas themselves. Hopefully, your kids enjoy more toppings than just cheese, pepperoni and bacon, which are the only toppings my kids like.
{Bliss Kids topping their mini-pizza, ages 6 and 3}
9. Mash food. Whether it's helping to make mashed potatoes, or mashing bananas for banana bread, kids love using a potato masher to smash down food!
10. Pound away at food. One of my son's favorite holiday desserts to help with is our Holiday Peppermint Bark. Not only does he like to eat the finished product, but he loves being given the okay to use our kitchen mallet to pound away at the hard peppermint into tiny little pieces. This is a task that is best supervised until they get the hang of it, but once they do, they'll fight to be the one to do it again and again.
There are many other tasks my kids do to help around the kitchen but this is a basic list for those looking to start getting their kids more involved with cooking and baking.
If you have young kids at home, here are some baking tasks that kids can help with. Keep in mind, you know your child best and what they can and cannot handle at their age.
- help gather ingredients
- read the recipe out loud as you go
- measure out ingredients
- whisk dry or wet ingredients together
- crack and beat eggs
- add in mix-ins like chocolate chips and berries
- cut out and shape cookies
- sprinkle toppings
- turn on the oven and set the temperature
- time the cool down time for you and let you know when the cool down time is up
- work on knife skills using a child-safe knife when cutting up bars and brownies
What do your kids love to do in the kitchen to help prep meals?
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