Cooking with Toddlers

Ah, the age of instant gratification. If it doesn’t happen fast, then toddlers and preschoolers lose interest. The key to you and your toddler enjoying time together in the kitchen is to keep it moving and to do that you have to be prepared. One of the most basic lessons taught at culinary school is the mise en place, or (loosely translated) “everything in place.” Have all your ingredients measured, chopped and organized in front of you and have all the utensils, bowl, pots and pans accessible. It is a simple concept, which yields innumerable benefits. Get everything ready and the experience will flow smoothly and your young child will stay engaged and even amazed as they watch a dish come together. Whether that means having all the fruit chopped in separate bowls for a fruit salad so that all is left is for someone to dump everything into one bowl and stir - or having all the yeast, flour, water and sugar ready for your child to quickly make it into bread dough – being prepared will make cooking with a toddler fun.

Besides dumping food into a bowl, toddlers and preschoolers can do a wide variety of tasks in the kitchen. Have them count ingredients like eggs, carrots and potatoes. Many like to wash fruit and vegetables – buy a vegetable scrubber and they will go to town on those potatoes and carrots. Play the color game – getting them to acknowledge that many different colors of food go into a healthy meal.

Some other ways toddlers can help in the kitchen include:
• Let your child taste as they go with safe foods. Maybe if she likes the carrots raw, she will be more willing to taste them once they’ve cooked in the stew.
• Use spoons to spread cheese, peanut butter and fruit purees on to bagels, toast and crackers
• Let your toddler sprinkle cheese on a new vegetable or your lasagna
• Let them make their own pizza by adding topping and cheese
• Tear lettuce
• Snap green beans
• Help you make smoothies; choosing and adding the ingredients.
• Transfer prepared, chopped vegetables or fruits to a salad bowl and stir or toss
• Stir mixtures like muffin or pancake batter
• Pour pre-measured milk onto their cereal.
• Cookie cutter shapes – have you child cut bread, cheese, and deli meat with a
safe cookie cutter.
• Toddlers can even help you at the grocery store picking out a zucchini, oranges or just the right bunch of bananas.

If you can spend the time supervising, keep the light on in the oven – let your child walk by and watch how their zucchini muffins transform in just a few minutes. Also, watching pancakes transform on a griddle from a safe distance or even watching an egg cook can get them fascinated enough to try a bite.

Ask your toddler for ideas for what to eat for a meal and be open – it may be a
Charlie Brown Thanksgiving some days, but empowering them to choose sometimes
will pay off in the long run! Remember, breakfast for dinner always gets everyone excited.

At the end of the food preparation is always presentation, and preschoolers love arranging their dinner on the plate. Have funny face competitions on your plates or see if your child can build simple shapes or towers with the food that they have.

Remember that this age has an ultra short attention span, so if it only lasts 5 to 10 minutes, the time they spend in the kitchen with you at this age will be a building block for the future when they can do more in the kitchen for longer. It is also the building block for a healthy relationship with food and with family.