Involving family members in the kitchen helps you:

• make preparing meals more fun and less work
• share food skills and cooking traditions
• feel more connected to those around you including different generations of family and others with a common interest.

Toddlers

Toddlers are likely to easily lose interest or get tired of cooking. Choose simple cooking tasks that match their skill and attention span. Give them lots of praise for helping.

Skills

• Wash fruit and vegetables
• Hand over utensils
• Stir ingredients

Recipes

Practice quick and easy recipes with interesting colours flavours and textures:

• Pita bread pizza
• Fruit salad
• Green salad

Children

Preschool

Preschoolers can get involved in shopping for healthy food choosing healthy snacks and preparing simple foods. Preschoolers are old enough to help with things like setting the table serving food and cleaning up after meals. 

Skills

• Brush foods with a pastry brush
• Mash foods with a fork
• Cut soft ingredients
• Spoon or pour ingredients

Recipes

Introduce recipes that involve building:

• Layer salad sandwich toppings
• Fruit salad with yoghurt
• Homemade dips like tzatziki or hummus
• Fruit or vegetable muffins

Primary school

Primary schoolers often enjoy helping in the kitchen. Encourage them to pack their own lunchbox read recipe steps out loud make menu suggestions and choose healthy ingredients for meals.

Skills

• Peel or grate vegetables
• Break eggs into a bowl
• Use scissors to snip herbs
• Measure ingredients

Recipes

Try more complex recipes:

• Fried rice
• Soup
• Pasta
• Pancakes

Teenagers

Teenagers can start testing out creative recipes and practice how to budget. 

Skills

• Teenagers can be more independent in the kitchen.
• Younger teenagers still need supervision around the oven hotplates and other appliances.

Recipes

Use staples to make family meals:

• Roast meat and veggies with a choice of spices.