Getting kids cooking with Mini Chefs
We’ve just come to the end of a brilliant summer of Mini Chefs sessions. Mini Chefs aims to make cooking with toddlers seem less daunting to parents and to encourage children to try a variety of fruit and vegetables.
We hope that our Mini Chefs will go on to cook at home and try out more recipes with their parents. Remember that you don’t need to make a complicated recipe. All exposure to healthy foods is good - simply chopping a cucumber or a banana to snack on still counts!
We split the sessions between three children’s centres this time to allow as many children as possible the chance to benefit from the sessions. Mini Chefs visited Liz Atkinson, Loughborough and St Stephen’s Children’s Centres.
Mini Chefs are child and parent cooking sessions run by vegan chef Mandy from Sneaky Veg and a team of brilliant volunteers.
Feedback from parents was positive and included comments such as:
- The facilitator’s “were really helpful and encouraged "child" to participate and have fun”.
- The favourite thing was “the healthy recipes that can be repeated at home!”
- Being able to take the food home “Taking away the meal at the end and the recipe to continue practicing at home”
- “The simple recipes with pre-prepared ingredients” worked well.
At our sessions this term we have made so many delicious and healthy recipes including:
- quesadilla
- yoghurt and berry parfait
- banana lollipops
- low sugar banana muffins
- rice cake faces - both chocolate ones and savoury ones
- apple cookies
- pizza pinwheels
The children have enjoyed all of the recipes and have learnt so many new skills. Cooking with children is a great way to work on confidence, familiarity with healthy foods and fine motor skills.
Skills our Mini Chefs used to make these recipes include:
- stirring
- mixing
- chopping
- spreading
- spooning
- rolling
- squeezing
- twisting
- and more!
Need inspiration? Take a look at our mini chefs recipe videos here or check out our recipes section.