Safe Cooking Tips For Kids: Teaching Children Healthy Home Cooking
Safe cooking tips are essential for everyone whose working with children in the kitchen. Sometimes they get a little excited and don’t pay attention so having down some basics is the best for everyone involved. We’ve put together some Safe Cooking Tips to ensure our children grow up with healthy, smart cooking habits.
If you didn’t catch it, I recently wrote a post about making chores fun that you may find helpful. We’re all about teaching around here!
It’s common knowledge that children are more likely to eat healthy foods if they are exposed to them from an early age and it’s becoming more known that allowing them to help in the kitchen will encourage them to eat things they may not necessarily have wanted to try before. Our oldest grandson hated vegetables when and absolutely refused to eat them but after some gentle coercion, seeing his Nonna eat them and his helping in the kitchen a bit we were able to persuade him.
Getting children in the kitchen when they are young will help them learn to cook healthier meals for themselves when they are older. We’re beginning habits that will last a life time so get them in the kitchen and begin teaching them soon.
The Basics
The basics are essential (and mostly common sense) in safe cooking tips. We pretty much know them and begin teaching them the basics from when they are little, like that stoves are hot and such but there are many we don’t think about until they are necessary.
Clean Hands & Area
We teach them about germs all the time i.e., ‘don’t touch that, it’s dirty’. The first thing to start with when teaching the kids to cook is hand washing and clean cooking area.
Knife Handling
Most children know knives are sharp and to be careful by the time they are old enough for us to let them begin cutting things in the kitchen. When they are big enough, it’s a good thing to start them with less dangerous tasks such as zesting so that they begin to respect the sharpness. Microplane has a fantastic little Glove and Zester Set that will protect their hands while they help, the glove protects their hand from scrapes with the zester.
When they graduate to chopping, teach them to hold the blade stead with their thumb and forefinger on either side of the blade then cut holding the item down with their knuckles out so that the knife is always far away from their fingertips. Professional chefs do this so that they can cut quickly without the danger. You can see an info-graphic about it here.
Using the Stove
Obviously we’ve taught them hot and cold, perhaps spent years teaching them not to touch the stove because it’s hot. Now we get to teach them a little more in depth things.
- When wearing long sleeves, roll them up before beginning!
- If using a step stool, make sure it is both sturdy and stable so that they won’t slide while the kids are cooking.
- Have all of the ingredients out and ready so that when they begin cooking, it will be easy to assemble. This will help discourage and teach about cross contamination. It also begins a great foundation for years to come.
- Teach them not to let the handles stick out from the stove top, otherwise they may easily bump something and spill hot food all over themselves or even cause a fire.
- Potholders, t-towels and other flammable things are not to be placed near the stove. This will help them get in the habit of not tossing things on top of the stove and may prevent fires. (Side note: hilarious story about Home Ec and that, but writing it makes it lose some of it’s hilarity so I’ll spare you.)
- Teach them, and stress it often, that if there ever a small kitchen fire that they should throw baking powder on it! Never flour or water!
- When done cooking, turn the burners/oven off. Seems like common sense, but teach it anyway.
Safe cooking tips are very basic, but when they are emphasized each time they will be remembered more easily. While it may seem like unnecessary repetition to repeat them every time, it is absolutely essential. There’s a reason commercials repeat their phone number or brand name over and over again, it gets them stuck in our head!
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Kids Cooking Tools: Glove & Zester
This would be handy for cooking in our kitchen. I also like the Mixing Bowl Grater Extra Coarse Grater for Cauliflower Rice – Purist Blue.
The mixing bowl grater would come in handy!
Garlic mincer. Anything kitchen gadget is my thing.
Tip because so many people I know seriously cut themselves when pitting avocado.
NEVER place in your had and whack a knife into the pit. EVER.
Cut in half on cutting board. Then you can knife the seed on cutting board or better scoop out.
Absolutely excellent tip!
I would love to purchase the Mixing Bowl Grater Extra Coarse Grater for Cauliflower Rice because I’m trying to get more veggies in my diet and less carbs! I would love to see more vegetables taking the place of pastas and rices, especially in restaurants.
You and me both!
Keep things clean and in reach if you use them a lot.
Premium Classic Series Zester/Grater – Black.
I always wanted those metal mesh gloves
I really like their jar lid graters. The tip to the pot handles towards the back of the stove is a good one that I try to remember and keep reminding my kids to do the same.
I really like the Garlic Slicer Mincer Set. Knife safety is very important to teach kids, especially how to hold a knife properly.
Always have a fire extinguisher in the kitchen – and know how to use it! I like the red garlic mincer set.
It’s so very important to always be mindful of safety when in the kitchen with little ones. I would also love to have their mixing bowl grater. It would come in handy.
This is an awesome way to teach kids how to hold a knife!
I have never thought to use a glove while zesting. The MANDOLINE V-SLICER is something that would be great in the kitchen.
it’s always a good idea to put the handles of pots and pans over the stove and not towards the outside of the stove
I am a very experienced home cook. But, after our family moved 5 years ago I allowed myself to cut corners and I used a mandolin without the protective guard (because I couldn’t find it) and sliced off a part of my thumb. We should never cut corners and always follow safety measures in the kitchen. I like that microplane.
Ouch! The mandolin does scare me a bit!
Pizza Night 3-Piece Gift Set – Pizza Making Kit look great to use and we love pizza too. Don’t set a hot glass dish on a wet or cold surface it can shatter.
This is a good article. My grandson is eight and he is really interested in learning to cook with me. These are some tips I can use when we get started. Thank you for sharing and co-hosting at #omhgww.
Helpful to know how to hold a knife. Grip’n Strip Straight Blade Vegetable and Potato Peeler – Green
The turn the pot handles in is the best tip. I found this out the hard way. I love the MY LITTLE HELPER 2PC GLOVE SET my grand daughter wants to help chop things and I would feel better if she had these
We should keep all sharp objects especially knives locked away in drawers for kids safety! I would like the 4 sided stainless steel professional grater!
Teach kids to respect the heat of the stove/oven. The importance of pot holders and such.
I like the variety of graters they carry.
Thanks for the chance.
a good piece of advice for safety in the kitchen is keep all the pan n pot handles pointed inward not hanging out over the edge of the stove top so u dont catch your clothing on them n pull hot stuff off on yourself or another. i love the round red pizza cutter its really original and sleek looking.
Definitely! I put it on the list! I love that the pizza cutter is so tidy! Seems like it would be much easier to put in the drawer!
Using the glove helps you not to cut yourself while using knives and/or shredding tools in the kitchen.
Definitely! Those cuts can be viscous!
The safety tip I agree with is Just watch your fingers, use their glove and food guards for personal safety.
Great lesson to not have to learn the hard way! haha
I like thier garlic mincer! 🙂 I always advise for stove never to be left unattended!
Garlic is my favorite! Definitely good advice! I burn things more than I care to admit!
Very important to teach kids the proper way to hold a knife & cut things.
Most definitely! My husband was teaching our daughter and I could not cut the way he taught her. Bad habits last a lifetime! haha
Little ones love to help in the kitchen, so learning safety first is a priority. I would love to have the 4-SIDED STAINLESS-STEEL PROFESSIONAL BOX GRATER – the hand grip on the top would definitely help.
Yes they do! I love teaching them things and the part when it finally clicks in their little brain is almost magical!
One tip that I have for knife handling is to never handle a knife with bare feet. You never know when you’re going to drop it.
I’d love to have the mixing bowl grater from their site. Thanks for posting!
That’s pretty smart! Never really thought about it, but I have done the oh expletive yell and jumped like a scared frog on more than one occasion when I dropped one! haha
I love the five cheese grater would love to have never work or cook in the kitchen without having your mind and body being there 100 percent especially with chopping very dangerous
ha! I agree! If my mind isn’t all in, I always ruin the food. It’s not my favorite thing about myself!
I’ve had one of those gloves for years and love it. I had no idea they came in kid’s sizes! And it’s FDA compliant for touching food, I didn’t realize that was a thing either! Ive got to get one for our daughter. She is crazy about cooking!
I didn’t know they had them for adults! haha. Makes sense, but I had no idea!