One of the most valuable gifts you can give your children is the knowledge of how to prepare healthy, satisfying meals from scratch. Given the mounting evidence of health risks from eating ultraprocessed foods – including increased risk of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and early death, among others – helping to set your child up for a lifetime of healthy eating should be a no-brainer.

But that doesn’t mean it’s always easy for busy parents to squeeze in cooking lessons (let alone getting their own home-cooked meals onto the table most nights!). Given how crazy family life can get with school schedules, sports and music, and other extracurriculars, teaching kids to cook can feel like One More Thing of “shoulds” added to the parenting pile.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. These simple tips, starting from when your child is an infant, will help you to teach kids how to cook little by little. As you gradually introduce your kids to both a love of cooking AND a lifetime of healthy eating habits, you’ll find that by choosing to teach kids how to cook gives them a lasting legacy of healthy habits and delicious eating.

This is a collaboration post. However, please know I stand behind everything written here, and only include links to products/services/resources I’m willing to recommend personally.

How to Raise Kids Who Know How to Cook:

1. Prioritize family dinner time as much as possible

I know, this sounds nuts in today’s modern life, but this was one of the “family rules” I laid out for my now-husband before we got married. I had grown up having dinner together as a family almost every night, and I wanted this family “together time” to be part of our life together going forward.

Among other things, numerous experts have pointed to the clear health benefits for all family members when sitting down together at the end of the day for a family meal is a high priority. Not just does this help your family reconnect after a long day, it also increases the chances that you’re eating at least some home-cooked food, versus constant fast food and takeout. Family dinners also teach kids to value healthy food and associate mealtimes with positive family time. And for families where one or more members have a severe food allergy, family meals together can make it easier for you to keep your allergic family member safe, something that’s hard to do on a diet of prepackaged ultraprocessed foods.

Fortunately, Dear Husband (who happens to be an excellent cook) was fully on board with this plan. Over the years, if nothing else fails, we know that Saturday night we’ll all sit down together for our “special Saturday dinner,” a custom my husband had established even before I met him. But most other nights, we also eat dinner all together, with no phones at the table, and just talk to each other. It’s precious time to catch up on each other’s days as well as discuss the schedule for days to come.

2. Don’t overthink “home-cooked meals”

Not all processed foods are create equal! The more advance prep and packaging involved (think fully-cooked frozen entrees and TV dinners), the less healthy a food is likely to be. But minimally processed foods – such as bagged salads, canned beans for some quick protein, or pre-chopped veggies – are fine if they’re what helps you get a home-cooked meal on the table. Ditto for fresh-frozen bagged veggies and fruits.

When you DO take the time to cook during the week, think about how many ways the food you cook can do double- or even triple-duty. For example, one of my go-to staples is either a triple batch of taco “meat” (a pound of ground beef, several chopped onions, and a can or two of beans) or a bag of dried beans simmered all day in the slow cooker, because I can then use the leftover meat in taco salads for my lunches as well as a nacho or tostada meal a few nights later. And stews, soups, and casseroles are great ways to use up leftover bits of cooked protein and vegetables, so they’re reinvented into a “new” dish with minimal prep time and effort.

While we’re on the subject, your slow cooker is one of your easiest time-saving tools when all the grownups in your house work. With a little extra prep time in the morning, you can easily have a hot homemade meal waiting for you when everyone returns home in the evening.

Feeling as if you’re at a disadvantage because you never really learned how to cook? There’s no shame in checking out a course or two via online Culinary Schools. From basic starter classes to more advanced techniques, a few cooking classes online (or in person if you have such an option near you) can be a fun way to brush up your skills and learn some new ones.

3. Set the right example from their first foods

When Kimmie and Essie were infants, there was never a question in my and Dear Husband’s minds that our kids would not be eating store-bought baby food. We reasoned that if we avoided processed food in our own diets, why not introduce our children to the deliciousness of homemade food from fresh ingredients as soon as they started solids?

To some people, this may sound intimidating – but it’s not that hard! Trust me! OK, yes, their earliest meals did include a fair bit of rehydrated baby cereals (usually mixed with breast milk at first, and later with plain, unsweetened yogurt and even peanut butter). But if you have a microwave, it takes scarcely more time to microwave-cook fresh veggies for your child and mash them than it does to open the jar of food, heat it slightly, and let it cool.

Foods that are SO easy to steam in the microwave and mash up for your little ones’ tasty eating include carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, summer squash, winter squash, peas, broccoli, and cauliflower – no salt or pepper needed! You can also cook and mash apples and pears this way, to make simple fruit purees that don’t need added sugar.

Likewise, babies LOVE mashed avocado and banana, whether straight up or thickened with baby rice cereal flakes. And don’t forget easy minimal- to no-processing finger foods that babies can start on around 8-9 months, including Cheerios, cooked plain pasta, and washed/cut up grapes, blueberries, and strawberries.

Looking for more ideas?

Someone loaned me a copy of Annabel Karmel’s classic baby food cookbook when Kimmie was about to start solids, and it was a lifesaver. Not only did it include simple baby-safe recipes, it was also a wealth of nutritional information about how to safely start your child on homemade baby food, including what was safe for them to eat. (And the reviews were correct – some of the dishes were so tasty that I still make them to this day for the whole family to enjoy!)

And while we’re at it, no, you DON’T need to buy a ton of new equipment just to make homemade baby food! If you already have a blender, immersion blender, food processor, or even a fork or masher tool, you’ll be fine. No microwave? Although you’ll lose more nutrients in the cooking water than would be ideal, you can always steam veggies on top of the microwave (one way to minimize this loss is by using a steamer basket).

Another key tip: rather than make individual portions of baby food, do what any sensible mama would do when cooking and prep in bulk. The easiest and most cost-effective way to do this is by dedicating several ice-cube trays to baby foods (each “cube” holds about 2 tablespoons of puree). This way, you can pop out individual cubes of different foods each morning or evening and let them defrost before it’s time for Baby’s next meal, to provide a nice rotating variety.

Finally, don’t forget that as babies reach the one-year mark, there’s no reason they can’t start sampling home-cooked grownup foods along with the rest of the family. I’ll never forget Kimmie’s delight the first time she had “grownup food” with us at the table. I think it was spaghetti with sauce, chicken, and some cooked green vegetable; but once she’d tasted “real food,” she was hooked.

4. Get them involved early on

From the moment your six-month-old has her first “solids,” involve her in the joy of eating and choosing fresh, healthy foods. Let her play with her foods on her tray (we used to call this “painting with food” – a dollop of yogurt in one corner, a dollop of mashed beet in another, and a dollop of mashed avocado in a third). Mix up the cereal variety by serving mush one meal, and cereal “balls” (cereal flakes, some plain yogurt, and a thawed cube of fruit puree) the next. Take your child with you to the grocery store, and narrate the delicious variety you see in the produce section to her as you shop for the veggies and fruits on your list.

As your children mature in years and words, involve them more in the food-choosing process. (“What vegetables should we have for dinner tonight?”) Remember that children may need as many as 7-9 exposures to a “new” food before they decide they “like” it, and that different preparation methods may help them decide to give new foods a try. (For example, if you’re a huge sweet potato fan, you can search through different online recipes for broccoli together.)

Also involve your kiddos as early as you can in helping with prep work. Even toddlers with a stool can help wash vegetables, spin lettuce in a salad dryer, or peel carrots. This is a great way both to spend time together and to start teaching them useful skills. And preschoolers are ready to learn not only to shuck fresh corn, but also (with adult supervision!) to learn how to cut veggies (a kid-sized mesh glove makes this much easier to teach them safely).

These quick-win hacks are easy ways to get your kids involved:

Consult them in menu-planning. Even if you just give them two simple choices (“Should we have green beans or carrots tonight? Should we have the lemony green beans, or the ones with toasted almonds?”), you’ll be giving them a say in making healthy choices, and letting them know their input is valued.
Grow some vegetables if you can. There’s nothing like watching your own food go from seed to harvest to pique kids’ interest in trying new vegetables, and knowing you helped grow and pick the veggies on your dinner table makes it a lot harder to turn them down.
Or at least grow a tasting garden for your kids to nibble. Growing your own herbs is a fun and easy way to introduce your kids to gardening. Essie in particular used to love helping me pick out new annual herbs for our herb garden each year, and it’s so wonderful that our kids can tell the herbs apart when one of us is cooking and sends them out to get a fresh sprig of this or that.
Teach your kids to shop local for produce whenever you can. Because we have limited garden space in our yard, we can never grow all the vegetables we’d like. But our kids know that garden-fresh whatever-we’re-not-growing-ourselves is as near as the nearest farmer’s market or a local orchard in season, and they love coming to shop at them with us.

5. Grow their skills as they grow

As I hinted at above, we had both girls handling sharp knives (with the benefit of mesh gloves to protect against accidental cuts) when they were in preschool. As they grew older, we made sure their skills progressed with age. By the time they were in elementary school, they were able to prep veggies and/or fruit for a salad, use the toaster/microwave/blender with adult supervision, and prepare simple snacks for themselves.

As your children build skills and confidence, there’s no reason not to include them in more of the actual day-to-day meal prep. They can also help more with menu planning, even if it’s picking between two choices for that night’s entree or side dish. This is also a good time to teach them how to read recipes, and do simple recipe-related math in their heads or on paper (for example, how to double a brownie recipe or halve a recipe for cookies). Baking something with your littles is a sure-fire win for an afternoon of memories combined with learning fun.

While you’re teaching them these skills, don’t forget to teach them other cooking and kitchen basics, from keeping cooking surfaces clean, to avoiding cross-contamination, prepping their workspace, and cleaning up after themselves. (Even preschoolers can wash and dry dishes at the sink with a stepstool, so there’s no excuse – besides, what could be more fun than playing in soapy water?)

Feeling like this is all too much to accomplish on a typical weeknight? No worries – just pick the least busy/crowded night of the weekend and set aside that time as “family cooking time.” Yes, it may take a little longer to get a meal on the table when you’ve got little helpers, but this is time well spent that will reap you huge dividends down the road.

6. Gift them some inspo

No matter how much cooking knowledge and experience you may have, there’s nothing like getting some age-appropriate inspiration when you’re a kid trying to learn new skills. This is why our family (and my friend Keisha’s kids as well, since their family also loves to cook) have acquired a number of kid-friendly cookbooks over the years. Among our favorites are the following:

The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs by America’s Test Kitchen;
The Complete Baking Book for Young Chefs, also by America’s Test Kitchen;
The Kid’s Cookbook and The Cookbook for Kids, both by Williams-Sonoma;
Master Chef Junior Cookbook;
Kid Chef Every Day: The Easy Cookbook for Foodie Kids; and
In the French Kitchen With Kids: Easy, Everyday Dishes for the Whole Family to Make and Enjoy.

Of these cookbooks, the last is probably the most advanced, so is a good choice for kids who’ve already got some cooking basics under their belts; and the first is the one my kids use the most. They have each found several go-to recipes in the first cookbook that they’ll turn to time and time again, say, when making themselves breakfast or lunch on the weekends, or when friends sleep over.

Regardless of what cookbook(s) you decide to give your child, things to look for include detailed explanations of techniques and tools at the beginning (or ideally, at the start of each recipe – this is one reason my kids use The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs the most, I suspect), as well as recipes that sound tasty and appealing to kids, and (ideally) also side-by-side reviews from actual kids of what they think of each recipe.

7. Make cooking a family affair

The more fun you can have together as a family cooking, the more likely your kids are to associate preparing good food for themselves with happy family memories. There’s no reason – especially if you train them in this habit early – that asking for your child’s help in meal prep should be a chore or a burden. Both my kids think of cooking with their dad as some of their best bonding times with him, and he would readily agree.

Now that both our kids are in high school, we often spend at least a part of Sunday dinner going over the schedule for the week, including who’s going to do the kid-schlepping to after-school activities and who’s going to cook dinner (since the timing of the schlepping generally precludes the schlepper from also being that night’s chef on duty). Whenever the kids’ homework and activities on weeknights permit it, we try to involve them in quick, simple tasks related to getting dinner on the table; and Dear Husband often involves them in his larger weekend cooking plans.

And with the end of the school year approaching, both kids are looking forward to the opportunity to take more turns at planning and prepping (with parental help as they see fit) an entire meal from scratch at least once every week or so. While they’ve done this before, it’s harder for them to squeeze in during the school year, so they relish the chance to take advantage of the lazier pace of summer days for some cooking fun.

Have you taught your kids to cook yet? What are your favorite tips for would-be parental cooking instructors? Share your best tips in the comments below!

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