Teaching a ten year old to cook

[Lovingwfh]

I would like to start teaching DS. He can make tea, toast independently but would like to to start actual cooking/baking.

Was thinking could do a meal a week - so dinner and pudding?

Any ideas please?

Macaroni cheese? A simple tomato sauce and pasta?

Baking? Welshcakes are easy, relatively bombproof and, as they taste best hot and warm from the pan, an instant reward.

I started mine with food he liked eating.
Lasagne, pizza, chicken stir fry, stew.
Cake, muffins, crumbles.
Cooking together before launching out independently worked better, and making sure he knew how to set and use a timer.
And all cooking ends with washing up and a clean kitchen ready for the next person to use.

We started with basic pasta and cheese. Then moved on to spag bol, then lasagne. Chicken fajitas. Basically one-pot stuff that doesn't need technique. And has vegetables!

Now 11yr old DC makes pizza bases, shepherd's pie, minced beef pie (with a bit of help with the pastry), tacos, soup, home-made chicken nuggets.

It helped that there was big interest in food in general! And we went with what they liked.

Put fish fillets in foil parcels with salt, lemon juice and dill and bake them. Nice with couscous which is easy.

Pasta, sauce and cheese

Basic 'roast dinner', so steaming veg and potatoes, and put a chicken in the oven.

How to make a basic tomato pasta sauce.

A basic lasagne (mince, onions, a jar sauce, pasta sheets, cheese on top).

How to boil an egg, or make scrambled egg.

Homemade soup.
Baked potato with variety of toppings.
Sausages and beans and mash.
Pasta with a tomato sauce.
Vegetable curry and rice.

Start with his favourite dishes and then look at building skills.
So say you start really simple, sausage and mash with peas. Cook sausages in oven so less worries about spitting fat. That way you can focus on the mash. Teach him to peel potatoes, chop, boil and mash them. Maybe just warm some peas in the microwave.
Then use the knowledge he’s got from the mash and teach him fishcakes, cottage pie etc.
Once you’ve done the basics of cottage pie you can then branch on to other mince and veg based dishes, spaghetti bolognaise, lasagne etc.
Then you will have also covered cooking pasta, so build on pasta dishes etc and so on. It really helps to see similarities between dishes to give confidence to experiment with available ingredients.