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Cookbook for a young teen?

17 replies

minipie · 09/12/2025 12:10

DD age 13 has got quite into cooking and I’m looking for a good cookbook for her. It needs to be fairly simple - ideally with recipes that are done in under an hour and don’t need complicated skills or equipment ! We do have plenty of ingredients though and all the usual equipment.

She’s not hugely into sweet food so not a baking only cookbook. Savoury bakes would go down well though. And meals she can cook for herself (she eats most things).

Any ideas? I’m not sure what I’m looking for really!

OP posts:
Forgottenmyphone · 09/12/2025 12:16

Jessica Merchant’s ‘Everyday Easy’ covers a bit of everything - it has pizza, burgers, dips, dressings, snacks, puddings etc…

Beedeeoh · 09/12/2025 12:17

The Tilly Ramsey one is good.

Beedeeoh · 09/12/2025 12:24

Although on reflection Tilly Ramsey might be a bit young for her? Perhaps the Mob cookbooks or the Sam Holland, they're straightforward for new cooks, or we quite like the Wagamama cookbook too.

minipie · 09/12/2025 12:32

Thanks all! Like the look of Easy Everyday and Sam Holland.

The Milly Ramsay book looks very suitable - I like that she has smoothies and other things that aren’t full meals - but I can’t quite get over the nepo baby thing… maybe I should…

OP posts:
MiddleAgedDread · 09/12/2025 12:35

The Roasting Tin series - everything goes in 1 tin!

JudgeBread · 09/12/2025 12:35

Sorted Food do some great ones, they got me through uni anyway!

IceIceSlippyIce · 09/12/2025 12:43

We like this one
https://amzn.eu/d/3WTmDk3

But maybe a bit young. It does variations on a recipie - so say baked fish, but then "add this this and this to make it oriental style, that that and that for Mexican style"

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.co.uk

https://amzn.eu/d/3WTmDk3?tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-food-and-recipes-5457311-cookbook-for-a-young-teen

minipie · 09/12/2025 18:06

Oh thank you - that BBC collection looks great.

I need to have a think about whether she’d use a book or whether she’d actually prefer a website or app…

OP posts:
SpiceGhoul · 09/12/2025 18:34

My nieces use the Tasty website, they do books too but they never use them. Seems to be aimed at young people and what's trending etc.

Tasty

Tasty - Food videos and recipes

The official home of all things Tasty, the world’s largest food network. Search, watch, and cook every single Tasty recipe and video ever - all in one place!

https://tasty.co

minipie · 09/12/2025 18:44

Thank you SpiceGhoul that site looks right up her street - basically social media style but just food !

Will look at the books too.

OP posts:
StruggleFlourish · 10/12/2025 13:10

What a wonderful and wholesome discussion. I'm so glad to hear you're 13-year-old is getting into cooking. At that age, I took a few classes in school, extraordinarily basic, but it got me interested in cooking. But I was just allowed to do baking at home. It was decided that cooking took too many expensive ingredients for me to be practicing with, that making the mistake of not making a meal properly and everyone in the household would go hungry was less important than learning how to make cookies and muffins and cakes.

As a result, I didn't actually start cooking until almost 10 years later than your daughter. I started by watching a lot of programs on TV, not every program, just the ones that I found the most entertaining. And by entertaining I don't mean those bake off kind of programs in which you only have an hour to create some amazing spectacle of food, I just meant, one that I could stand watching the host, the way that they spoke etc.

I also perused a lot of magazines which have big bright colors, glossy pages, easy to read, in retrospect they're not really the best thing for a new cook because you can't tell the difference when you're reading through, how complicated something is, and it's difficult to gauge how many different tools and ingredients and time everything's going to take even though it's written there, a good cook can look at a dish or quickly skim a recipe and decide whether or not it's worth it to them. And you don't have that skill when you're inexperienced.

I'm not going to say cookbooks are outdated but they kind of are, I'm sure that your daughter has a smartphone and if not that she has access to a phone or a computer, and those really are great tools for cooks. You can literally Google a question like "chicken rice red pepper onion spinach recipe" (say that's what you've got on hand and you're not really sure what to make out of it) And it'll give you several recipes. They'll be too much choice and it is overwhelming, but if you take the time to pre-select about a dozen different online sources, one's in which you like the way it's written, the food is stuff that you like, and it gets high reviews, then you can limit your searches to those databases.

For instance, although I think that she might be American, there is a website that I really like called "spend with pennies" And aside from having to do a very quick conversion of measurements if needed, I found that almost all of her recipes turn out to be really good.

Good luck to your daughter on her culinary adventure!

ThisCleverRoseSquid · 10/12/2025 21:18

minipie · 09/12/2025 12:10

DD age 13 has got quite into cooking and I’m looking for a good cookbook for her. It needs to be fairly simple - ideally with recipes that are done in under an hour and don’t need complicated skills or equipment ! We do have plenty of ingredients though and all the usual equipment.

She’s not hugely into sweet food so not a baking only cookbook. Savoury bakes would go down well though. And meals she can cook for herself (she eats most things).

Any ideas? I’m not sure what I’m looking for really!

To be honest there is so much content online these days, you can create your own and fusion recipes.
Follow the online recipe and ask the teen ager to create your on diary. that way they can remember and visualize how it was actually made. that is how my kids learnt cooking.

Fernsrus · 10/12/2025 21:21

Some of the Jamie Oliver ones .

Pineapplesunshine · 10/12/2025 22:04

My 12 year old also mainly uses BBC good food - she’s signed up to it and it sends her recommended recipes intermittently, but generally she just thinks about what she fancies and looks for a recipe there.
Personally, when I was starting out cooking, the book I used most was Nigel Slater’s Real fast food - meals in under 30 minutes - it’s great and I still make recipes from it all these years later. I suspect it’s not as appealing to modern young people though as not so many pictures and my kids tend to just look online for recipes. It’s really great that you’re daughter is getting into cooking so anything you can do to encourage her sounds a good idea. You could always get her a gadget or some equipment if that might encourage her and she will look online for recipes?

nongnangning · 10/12/2025 22:06

Mob Kitchen - it's a cool online searchable app with young chefs. About £20 for one year sub

canuckup · 10/12/2025 22:36

Seriously, Milly, Tilly and bloody Gordon???

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