Cooking is a life skill most people are taught from an early age. However, getting your children invested in what goes in and out of the oven can be tricky. Kids tend to prefer the eating part of dinnertime, and when it comes to the cooking side, they’re quickly out of the kitchen and doing something else!

What can you do to show them that cooking is just as fun as digging in when everything is ready? If you’re a little short on ideas, we’ve got some below that should do the trick. Check them out to get the kids in the kitchen and happy to help out.

Start with Sugary Recipes

Sugar is the tastiest ingredient for most kids, and there’s a good chance your little tykes have a big sweet tooth as well. So start with the sugary stuff! Show them how sugar works, how it can improve a meal, and even how too much of it can be a bad thing for the flavor of a dish.

After all, vanilla essence tastes great in baked goods, but it’s not so good on its own! And with physical examples like this in hand, you can really help your child to explore more foods and start loving them.

Make Food in the Shapes of Animals

Kids love animals, possibly even more than they love sugary sweets to eat — use this to your advantage here. Plenty of recipes can be tweaked just slightly to ensure you can shape the product into something that resembles an elephant, tiger, hedgehog, or just your child’s favorite pet.

And even when you’re putting together a cast iron pizza that has a flat dough bottom, you can make animal and/or funny faces with the toppings you put on it! A little bit of imagination goes a long way in the kitchen, and imagination is something that kids have a lot to spare.

Showcase the Magic of Simple Ingredients!

Simple ingredients, or a small number of ingredients, can go a very long way. Take the simple pancake as a good example here – you just need oats and syrup at the heart of it! You can add extra things if you like, such as raspberries, blueberries, and icing, but you only need a few things to make something even more scrumptious!

Just two or three ingredients can make some amazing dishes that your child will love to make and eat. It’s a good way to ease them into the complex world of cooking, and it’s something they can safely come back to time and time again.

Cooking can be fun when you’re using the right tools and ingredients. Even for adults, sometimes it can be difficult to find joy in cooking. Teach your kids from a young age how to enjoy spending time in the kitchen and preparing meals that’ll help them stay healthy for their entire lives.