Cooking with Kids

Parenting
 06 Jul 2023

Tommy Pham shares some great ways to build food excitement – and cooking skills – in your mini-chef.  

BY HEJIRA CONVERY, KINDICARE

JULY 7, 2023

Tommy Pham is a dynamic dad and cool kindergarten teacher, who also starred in a ‘little’ show called MasterChef 

He’s a big believer in making cooking fun for kids – inspiring a love of good food along the way – and although most parents aren’t professional chefs or trained teachers, we can all channel a bit of Tommy’s playfulness in the kitchen!  

To help you introduce interesting ingredients to your little one, and hone some key kitchen skills as they grow, Tommy has kindly answered four of our most burning questions about cooking with kids.  

Here goes!  

KINDICARE: Young children generally love plain, pale food, but how can us parents jazz up the menu and get our under-fives interested in more colourful, aromatic dishes?  

TOMMY: I always love to feed Miles (my three-year-old) what I eat. But the trick is to water down the flavour, so he isn’t consuming the same amount of salt or sugar that we are used to.  

For example, with both my boys, I will serve the same food I’m eating, but with Miles’ serve I will dilute the flavour by adding more water or less seasoning.  

My other son, Hugo, is only 13-months-old, so I will leave the salt, sugar or stronger seasoning out completely.  

Another hit for Miles is having some sauce or a dip!  

I usually cook his vegetables with oyster sauce, garlic and soy sauce, but with some added water to make it less salty.  

This helps to ease his palette and get him used to stronger flavours, and I think it is important to start children young with different flavours, introducing as much of what you eat to them as early as you can.  

KINDICARE: This is great advice, and when it comes to meal preparation, how can we involve our children in different jobs at different ages? 

TOMMY: It's great to get even very young children involved in the actual making of food. This gives them a sense of ownership, which in turn, makes them more likely to eat the meal, since they had a hand in making it. 

Different ages obviously have different kitchen capabilities, but they can build skills and work their way up to more involved tasks as they learn and grow.  

As a guide, under threes can help with pouring and adding ingredients to what you’re cooking. This is a very simple thing, but they love it. They can also identify flavours, and talk about whether a food tastes salty or sweet. 
 
Under-fives can get involved with cutting softer ingredients, as well as tasting and seasoning. They can also identify different ingredients and answer questions, like “What can you taste?” and “What is in this sauce?”  
 
Under 12s are capable of many cooking jobs! They can do more prep work, and you can give your primary schooler whole parts of a recipe to work on.  

For example, they can be in charge of onions and potatoes, and then join them together at the end to make the complete dish.  


 
KINDICARE: What are some playful kitchen activities we can try that don’t involve the kitchen becoming a food fight disaster zone? 

TOMMY: There are lots of different ways to make cooking genuinely fun for kids and grown-ups, including playing with real kitchen utensils for pretend play, and using appliances with the help of a parent, such as a blender or food processor.  

This can help kids become more comfortable in the kitchen and get them used to the equipment without creating too much of a mess.   

KINDICARE: Even so, there are times when cooking feels like a chore for mums and dads. Have you got any advice for parents who are too tired to cook, or are totally out of inspiration after making 10,000 meals in a row?    

TOMMY: Make the frozen nuggets and get takeaway whenever you need to, because the stress involved in cooking a meal when you’re tired or burnt out isn’t going to end well!  

A cheeky little cheat meal that doesn’t involve prep or clean-up will do wonders for your morale. 

Thanks, Tommy! 

This is all very good food for thought, and if you need more inspo, then Mr Pham’s new book, My Family Kitchen, has just been released. 

It’s full of yummy (and super easy) recipes, plus a whole range of fun kitchen activities to get your kiddo interested in cooking.  

Whatever your methods, we hope you can whip up some gorgeous food now and delegate all the cooking soon.  

Well, that’s the dream, anyway!