How to Teach Kids How to Cook

Telling the kids at my last cooking class at Hudson Table that I wouldn’t be coming back was one of the hardest parts of moving. Why? they said and Don’t move! I’ve had some of them for a full year, which means I saw them visibly grow. Once they accepted that they weren’t changing my mind (and couldn’t buy me a house in Greenpoint), they began making posters for “Kate’s Cafe” which they said I should open in Kingston, and promised to work there during the summer.

I don’t think there’s anything like Hudson Table in terms of the rigor and level of cooking we do with the kids. They come from south Brooklyn and the Upper East Side to join the afterschool program and summer camp. I’ve learned so much in my last two years, mostly thanks to my boss Sara, who established the program, as well as the other people I’ve gotten to work with, and through my own observations. Before it all starts to feel far away, I wanted to write down an exhaustive guide to teaching kids to cook. My perspective comes from managing a group of kids of mixed ages, but I’ve tried to boil it down to some universal principles that apply if you’re working with one kid or twenty.

By the way, if you’d like to see all this compiled into a zine, along with some kid-oriented recipes, let me know!

Stations set up for 10 at Hudson Table

1. Dissect the recipe together

In a lot of my classes, we don’t have time to read the recipes together, but in small groups or with individuals, this is where I like to start. First, we talk about how to prepare. For older kids, I teach them the phrase mise en place. For younger kids, I explain that a recipe has “secret steps” that are hidden in the ingredients (e.g. 1 cup sliced scallions). We identify all the things we have to do before we even get to the directions. Once they’ve read through the recipe, I might ask if there are any parts that will take a long time (chilling, baking) and if there’s anything else we need to do to prepare (preheat the oven, prepare a cake pan).

2. Hype them for the hard parts

I believe kids can execute almost any technique adults can, but, like all humans, they don’t pay attention equally to all parts of a task and they lose focus and momentum over time. I try to ascertain which parts of a recipe require the most finesse or attention and tell them about it before we start. Highlighting the biggest challenge can turn it into a sort of game, or at least give the most ambitious kids an opportunity to prove themselves.

The “hard parts” may be obvious, like rolling out a pie dough evenly, piping meringues, or stir-frying at a high temperature, or it could mean chopping a big pile of onions: The first time I taught French onion soup, it was a disaster of snot and tears, with kids wiping their eyes while holding knives and running back and forth to the bathroom. The second time, I warned them that cutting the onions was going to make them cry, so we were going to do it as quickly (but safely) as possible. I asked for volunteers who felt good about it, and told everyone else to go as far as they could, then we’d reset their stations and give them something else. Everyone took the job seriously and actually had fun (there were some shrieks) working through their discomfort.

3. Let them make judgement calls

Whenever a kid asks me, Is it ready? my immediate response is, What do you think? If they say they don’t know, that’s when we talk about what signs to look for so they can figure it out. (To test whether a pan is hot, sprinkle some water and see if it sizzles away. Use a thermometer to measure cooked chicken or frying oil. If they want to know when to stop whipping cream, I ask, Does it look like whipped cream?)

I remind them to taste all the time (we have single-use tasters at HT, but you can use a “mother spoon” to serve into their tasting spoon if the food will be served to other people). We talk about whether a dish needs more salt or acid, or I invite them to think of another seasoning they can add.

Whenever possible, I try to include a small dish that they can create themselves by mixing together a few ingredients. Salad dressing or pesto, salted honey butter for biscuits, “special sauce” for burgers, dipping sauce for dumplings. Tasting and adjusting is one of the most important skills of cooking, and giving them ownership over a project motivates them better than anything.

4. Pause!

I still remember trailing my first kids class and the way my heart leapt into my throat as I watched them cut. It’s natural to be nervous about giving kids 9-inch chef’s knives, but I found that using plastic knives when they’re old enough for the real thing teaches them carelessness and unsafe habits. Somehow, you have to trust them and prevent injury at the same time. When I teach family classes, I see parents literally grab their kid’s hand holding a knife to reposition it, which always makes me wince. They don’t learn anything from this, except that they’re doing it “wrong,” and sudden movements around cutting boards are always a bad idea.

So I watch kids, especially the younger or less experienced ones, with hawk’s eyes. If I see something that looks like it could lead to an injury, I immediately call out, Pause! They should stop in their tracks (if they don’t, then you need to have a conversation about that). Then I try to use words to describe what I’m concerned about, and how to hold the knife or ingredient in a safer way. If they’re not getting it, I ask if I can demonstrate or move their hands. Since there’s no immediate danger, we can let this conversation take all the time it needs.

What being a chef means to kids

Rules and other boring stuff

Every class starts out sitting at the counter together. We do an icebreaker if people are new, we talk about what we’re going to make, and I signpost how the class is going to go. On the first day, we come up with a list of rules/agreements together on a big poster board. I structure the conversation differently depending on the group and how much time we have, but often I like to brainstorm around some prompts.

What does it mean to be a good chef?

• Knows how to lead and support (the kitchen is a team!)

• Is creative and good at problem solving

• Cooks for other people, not just themselves (conscious of germs, cross-contamination, other people’s tastes)

• Shows respect to everyone

  • Taking turns

  • Don’t Yuck my Yum (don’t call anyone’s food “disgusting”)

  • Sometimes we talk about the importance of a dishwasher to a restaurant

Between their ideas and my prompting, the other points we need to cover include:

Moving around the space

• Saying “behind” and “open oven”

• No running. Ever.

• Assume anything on the stove is hot, as well as metal objects near the stove vents

• Never walk away from a lit stove without someone else taking responsibility

• Don’t leave tools on the stove, always on the counter

Germs

• Use tasting spoons, no double-dipping

• Teach the chef’s cough or sneeze (into the elbow) and have everyone practice

• If you touch your face or phone, go wash your hands

Knives

• Don’t ever carry knives except in the holster. Don’t put a dirty knife back into the holster.

• Knives go in the “off position” (at the top of the cutting board) when not in your hand. No gesturing with a knife.

• Never try to catch a knife if it falls

• Don’t reach onto or across anyone else’s cutting board

Clean As You Go

• Keep cutting boards clear of everything except what you’re cutting. Move cut ingredients into a container.

• Put dirty dishes in the dish bin

• Let us know if there’s a spill

• In camp, we use a kind of “chore wheel” so kids are randomly assigned to different cleaning tasks. While I’ve found that everyone hates sweeping, they usually like scraping off counters with a bench scraper, using a scrubber brush, and can even get into cleaning a sink. You can offer gloves if they’re squeamish.

Phones/attention

• During summer camp, I decorate a hotel pan with a face and designate it the Phone Monster. Phones stay there until breaks.

• Take the first bite with your eyes closed - I came up with this rule because the kids were excited about cooking, but as soon as it was time to eat they were on their phones and barely conscious of the food.

A handmade pasta challenge during summer camp last year

Choosing What to Cook

Obviously, let them choose whenever possible. If there’s something they love to eat or they’ve seen on YouTube and want to try, give it a go. If you’re limited by what ingredients you have, make the constraint part of the challenge. My favorite classes are Chopped-style competitions, in which the kids have a pantry they can pull from and a few secret ingredients that they have to incorporate. I’m always impressed by how quickly kids come up with an idea and start executing when they have a challenge like this.

The Youngest (4-7)

Choose small foods that give them agency. Letting each kid fold their own dumplings or make their own pizza is more fun than building a lasagna together. Sometimes a “cute” project like building a caterpillar by skewering grapes together can be fun, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking that just because they’re little, they want to decorate more than cook. That said, stove work usually isn’t as fun or as logistically feasible as working with doughs or making dips. Puff pastry and phyllo can be your friends, as well as piping bags (kids as young as 2 or 3 can use a piping bag!)

Grade School (7-12)

Kids at this age vary a huge amount in terms of skills, motivation, and maturity. They might be recommending the steak at a French restaurant one minute, then rolling around on the floor the next. Individual items can still be good practice (sushi rolls), but if they’re interested, you can start to teach them cooking principles and more technique-based work (I’ve been schooled by an 8-year-old on not beating egg whites stiff enough for a meringue).

This is probably my favorite age group for creative cooking challenges. They tend to have strong opinions and easy access to their creativity. You can choose how much structure to offer (creative pasta sauce or something open-ended, like an entrée that combines tortilla chips, avocado, and chickpeas). Give them a time limit and help them make a plan about how to execute their idea.

I’ve worked with grade-school kids who are a little picky, and whose parents want them to cook because they think it’ll make them more interested in food. I try to teach them recipes that empower them to make snacks or meals for themselves and change around the ingredients to suit their tastes. One of my favorite flexible recipes is to take frozen Goya empanada wrappers and show them how to make different fillings — bacon and eggs, beans and cheese, maybe even a spinach-ricotta filling. Crimp the wrapper closed with a fork, give it an egg wash and bake at 400°F for about 25 minutes until golden-brown.

Preteens + Teens (12+)

As I said above, I think a motivated preteen can do just about anything an adult can. Sometimes their coordination isn’t fully developed, or they don’t have the judgement adults do (forgetting about a lit burner, not planning the timing of tasks to align well) so you’re there to offer guidance, but let them lead.

If you’ve got a budding culinary genius at home, you could help them design and execute a restaurant-style meal for their friends or extended family. Encourage them to practice some dishes beforehand and make notes about anything they would like to change. Then make sure they have an exhaustive ingredient list and prep list, including even the smallest tasks. They can be the head chef and you can be their sous/server.

This has been a bit of a brain dump, but if there is anything more specific you want to hear about, please tell me!

What I’m Cooking