Six safety hacks for cooking with kids

Try these kitchen safety hacks for when you're cooking with little ones, without worrying about accidents!

Cooking is a brilliant activity to do with young children. It helps develop communication and motor skills, builds confidence and even introduces basic maths concepts. This guide will help you to keep little ones safe when using knives, handling scissors, measuring ingredients and more.

Wherever possible, let your little ones use their hands for mixing, rolling and tearing. As well as being an efficient and safe way to get things done, it's also really fun for kids to get stuck in, and exploring how ingredients feel and smell really helps them to engage with new foods. Just make sure everyone thoroughly washes their hands before you start and between handling different types of food!

Delegating smaller jobs like greasing the baking tin with a pastry brush is an easy and fun task that will hold their attention while you get on with the trickier bits of cooking.

Peeling a hard boiled egg can be quite difficult and messy. Try this technique and let your little one have fun shaking the box. Take the cooled boiled eggs and put them in a tight lidded sandwich box a quarter full of cold water. Put the lid on then shake the box so all the shell falls off.

If you don't have a whisk at home this hack is a quick and easy way to whip cream. Pour the whipping cream into a jar, make sure the lid is on tight and shake the cream in the jar until it goes stiff – you'll know when the cream is stiff because the noise inside the jar will change.

Cracking and whisking eggs is a really fun job for little ones, but they can occasionally get a bit over-enthusiastic! Add eggs one at a time to a recipe, so that if anything goes wrong with one of them (like lots of crumbly bits of shell), you won't have wasted the whole lot. Always remember to wash your hands thoroughly after handling raw eggs.

We've got plenty of useful guides on how to cook with your children, and have fun!

Check out this helpful guide on how to cook with children from CBeebies Parenting. 

Discover some top tips for having fun with food with your little one and watch the children from Our Family getting creative in the kitchen.

Find out how to develop your child’s maths and coordination skills through adventurous eating.

Take inspiration from around the world and have a go at these fun and delicious recipes with your little one from My World Kitchen.

Discover easy recipes to get cooking with your kids and have fun with food.