Cooking With Toddlers Skills

Cooking with toddlers creates great ways little ones to learn foundational skills. Toddlers love to be included in tasks around the home too.

Cooking With Toddlers: Banana Skills

Bananas are an excellent start to cooking with toddlers. Even a 1-year-old can peel a banana (maybe with a head start). I always introduce basic cutting skills by slicing a banana. There are safe kids' knifes you can buy, but a butter knife will work too. 

I often bake or make pancakes with bananas, so I’ve often tasked a very willing toddler with mashing bananas. For a newbie or when using a firm banana, I find cutting the banana first makes the toddler feel more accomplished, as many don’t like to be helped. Toddlers have mashed bananas in a large metal mixing bowl, alright. However, it’s easier for them on a deep rimmed plate. I give them forks, but a potato masher could work as long as their arms can be above the surface they are using.

Cooking With Toddlers: Avocado Skills

A ripe avocado can be a great addition to cooking with toddlers. They will need help to cut through the peel and removing the pit/stone. Scooping out half a ripe avocado and cutting or mashing it are doable skills to teach toddlers. 

Cooking With Toddlers: Washing Fruit or Vegetables Skills

This is another basic cooking skill even little ones can be involved with. With a learning tower, chair or tall stool they can use the kitchen sink or you could place a flat bottomed bowl with water in it on a towel on the floor or a low table. A little vegetable scrubbing brush can help them do a better job. 

Cooking With Toddlers: Tearing Vegetable Skills

Not anything we chop needs a knife. The trick with tearing a sweet pepper or capsicum is to pull from the inside out with the thumbs. The stem of a pepper/capsicum can be twisted off, hopefully with the seeds (the rest can be picked out by hand). Then tear up the rest of the pepper/capsicum into small enough pieces using the index fingers and thumbs the regular way. 

The softer varieties of mushrooms of various sizes can be torn up by little hands. Lettuce and salad leaves can also increase their tearing skills and hand eye co-ordination when shown how.

Cooking With Toddlers: Stirring Skills

I prefer the toddlers in my care to stir cold food, such as eggs or pancake batter in a bowl.

Cooking With Toddlers: Making Smoothies and Popsicles 

As long toddlers are taught to drop what you give them into the top of the blender, then they can help make smoothies. I tend to separate the container from the base as toddlers find impulse control really hard and can reach the top easier too. This is a great way to use up partly eaten fruit, which toddlers a good at. 

You can stop there or make homemade popsicles sticks too. I recommend the separate popsicle molds as they take up less freezer space. You could save and wash small yoghurt pots and popsicle sticks for DIY popsicle molds. I pour them out with the toddlers, which is why I don’t have photos of this part. 

Cooking with Toddlers: Spreading Skills

This might be surprising, I've observed that toddlers can spread soft things, like smooth nut butters, cream cheese or guacamole on bread or a tortilla, however it's challenging for them. A sturdy cracker, rice cake or cool toast with something easily spreadable are best for newbies. Lower your standards and role with the mess. With this kind of task they often see help as an insult. Remember that them feeling capable is more important than being successful in toddlerhood.

Cooking With Toddlers: Storing Skills

I love to batch cook and freeze meals for little ones in silicon trays, then when they are frozen store them in ziplock bags. I found toddlers also like to help store the cool food.

 Click the links if you would like to be inspired by more engaging toddler activities for 1-year-olds, 2-year-olds or 3-year-olds.