Cooking with a toddler

[Raisingwildanimals]

My 3 year old loves baking, she would live in the kitchen if she could. We mainly do things like cakes, crumbles, cookies etc. But I want to start getting her to help me with meals, does anyone have any easy recipes? I’m not expecting a 3 course meal but I’m so sick of making cakes every other day haha

Making chicken nuggets with cornflakes! realfood.tesco.com/recipes/cornflake-chicken-nuggets.html She could do the dipping/coating of the chicken pieces.

Mini quiches - once you’ve rolled the pastry, she could use the pastry cutter to cut out circles of pastry and put them in the muffin tins. www.asdagoodliving.co.uk/food/recipes/mini-quiches

Cheese straws - she could help to twist the pastry and sprinkle on the cheese www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2413/quick-cheese-straws

Meatballs www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2451637/cooking-with-kids-spaghetti-and-meatballs-with-hid She could roll the meatball mix into walnut-sized balls and place them on a plate. I bet she’d also enjoy squeezing all the sausage meat out of the sausage skins into a bowl!

Toad in the hole www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/makes/i-can-cook-toadinthehole

Thank you for those ideas, they all seem fab! We made ‘egg boats’ today using soft taco shells and she absolutely loved it.

There's a CBeebies series called "I can cook" which might give you inspiration

Soup- loads of different foods to prepare, chop etc.
Omelettes
Crumble

Baked potato skins stuffed with bacon/cheese made to look like mice were a big hit with my boys!!

My DS has loved helping me cook from when he was about 18 months old. I found that a plastic lettuce knife is sharp enough to cut mushrooms and a few things like courgette and celery with a little effort, but would not be sharp enough to cut little fingers (he is obviously closely supervised and I make sure he is holding things properly). He is now 3 and can actually do a useful job chopping mushrooms.

What a cutie!

Pizza is always a hit chez nous

Especially the dough you make yourself

Then you can add whatever ingredients you like