Empowering kids in the kitchen: Teaching healthy eating is best done hands-on

With routines disrupted during the summer holidays, it can be difficult to manage children's constant demands for meals and snacks. Jolene Cox, author of Now You’re Cooking!, offers inspiration for getting them active in the kitchen.

Food writer and educator Jolene Cox is encouragin families to get their kids involved in the kitchen

School summer holidays are long and, with everyone’s routines disrupted, it can be difficult to manage small people’s constant demands for meals and snacks. Food writer and educator Jolene Cox has the solution: Get them into the kitchen to cook for themselves.

Known on her popular Instagram account as One Yummy Mummy, Cox and her daughter, 12-year-old Lily Mae, have been teaching online cooking classes for kids for the last six years. Over that time, she’s learned a thing or two about the kind of things that children like to make in the kitchen — and about what stops them.

“Sometimes, the barrier can be us [the parents] because we think about the cleanup,” Cox says.

Mess aside, when you encourage your children to start cooking, you’re giving them tools to enable them to have a healthy diet. “We all want our kids to eat that little bit healthier,” says Cox. “You want them to eat their veg with every meal, their fruit, to have the basics of good health. But it all starts with cooking from scratch.

“No matter what you’re making, it’s going to be healthier than take-away because you have control of [the ingredients].”

Cox, who worked as a Montessori teacher and crèche manager before Lily Mae’s birth, has been cooking with her daughter since she was in her high chair. The Montessori method of teaching emphasises independence, with the phrase ‘Help me to do it myself’ as a guiding principle.

“I have always thought there’s something to do [in the kitchen] at any age,” she says. “The Montessori method would have used a lot of spooning and pouring, so there are loads of things that kids can do when they start off cooking, like peeling garlic or peeling ginger with the back of a spoon. We use graters at first, and scissors, for younger kids. They feel a sense of accomplishment, and then it builds.”

In Now You’re Cooking! 70 Recipes That Kids Can Make, the bestselling cookbook that Cox wrote with her daughter, the first section focuses on kitchen skills, starting with absolute basics — preheating the oven, weighing ingredients, seasoning food — moving through preparation skills for beginners (grating, how to crack an egg) before delving into more involved knife skills.

“I always say to parents, ‘try and resist the urge to take over’ because that’s a confidence killer for the kids and it’s too easy for us to do that,” says Cox.

“Don’t be afraid of knives,” she adds. “Once kids are taught how to chop safely, that’s a lifelong skill.”

In the book, there are detailed descriptions of how to use knives, complete with photos. “It shows them the little steps and just lets them have that visual when they are chopping — this is the bridge method, the claw method, the scatter method — and to understand once they have their fingers tucked behind that knife as it glides down, they’re going to be fine.”

Plenty of encouragement is key, she notes and “a sharp knife is actually safer than a dull, blunt knife.”

Food doesn’t have to be complicated to be successful with children, either.

“Sometimes all it takes is making a simple tomato sauce, just a tin of tomatoes, some fresh garlic, some basil…making it themselves and just adding pasta.”

As Cox also notes in Now We’re Cooking!, this homemade tomato sauce can also count towards one of your five a day. It’s also a step towards sharing the daily dinner load.

“Once they learn how to grate a garlic clove, chop an onion… that’s the start of so many dishes,” says Cox. “For instance, the kids love making curry from scratch. We break [the recipe] down and make it age-appropriate. These are things that make them feel they can do this, giving them a sense of achievement. Once they’ve made that, their parents are so impressed they’ll ask [their child], ‘Can you do it again?’ Or maybe, instead of ordering a spice bag takeaway on a Friday, they’ll try and make it themselves. Tray bakes are great too because you’re flinging everything onto one tray, putting it into the oven, and 40 minutes later, dinner is ready.”

For fast rewards — and to fill in that snacktime or lunchtime space — Cox’s book has recipes for easy dishes that also involve learning extra skills: Egg mayonnaise on toasted bagels (“how to boil the eggs and peel them”), a quick chicken ramen, posh beans on toast — “using butter beans for more fibre, adding passata and a little bit of sour cream too” — and homemade jambons, using mascarpone instead of béchamel (white sauce).

And, yes, cooking can be messy. Cox remembers a day when she had children grating butter for the online class and a parent told her afterwards that the butter went everywhere, even on the ceiling.

“Of course, we teach them hygiene and keeping your countertops clean and things like that,” says Cox, “But if they’re actually doing something productive, they’re out of their room, they’re making a bite to eat, the bigger picture is we can deal with the mess, we’ll work together on it.

“Parents are telling me that phones are a huge issue at the moment, even with younger kids, and [cooking] is getting them off that scroll and doing something really productive that sparks joy in them and gives them a sense of achievement.

“When cooking with kids, it’s just amazing to see them just blossoming in front of your eyes, their confidence and happiness,” says Cox.

“Even the presentation. They take so much pride in the way they plate it up. It’s like, ‘I’ve made this. I’m really proud of it.’”

The proof is in the pudding. Or in the dish that your children serve to you for dinner.

Jolene and Lily Mae Cox's Jambons

A jambon is a flaky pastry stuffed with ham and melty cheese – the ultimate lunchtime snack. Recipe from Now You’re Cooking! 70 Recipes That Kids Can Make by Jolene and Lily Mae Cox (€30, Nine Bean)

Servings

12

Course

 Side

Ingredients

• 2 sheets of ready-rolled puff pastry

• 150g mature white Cheddar cheese

• 100g cooked ham

• 250g of mascarpone cheese

• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

• ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

• 1 egg

Method

1. If your pastry is frozen, put it in the fridge overnight to thaw it.

2. The next day, preheat your oven to 200°C for a conventional oven or 180°C for a fan oven.

3. Line two baking trays with non-stick baking paper.

4. Grate the cheddar. Cut the ham into small pieces using clean kitchen scissors.

5. Unroll the puff pastry sheets on a chopping board. Cut each sheet in half lengthways, then into thirds widthways so that you get six small rectangles on each sheet.

6. Put the mascarpone cheese, mustard and nutmeg in a large mixing bowl and stir with a wooden spoon. Add the grated cheddar and diced ham and stir together.

7. Put a generous tablespoon of the ham and cheese mixture in the middle of each puff pastry rectangle. Fold in the corners to create little parcels. Put the parcels on the lined baking trays, spaced apart to give them room to puff up a little.

8. Crack the egg into a small bowl, then whisk with a fork. Using a pastry brush, paint the top of each parcel with the beaten egg to give them a golden shine.

9. Put the trays in the preheated oven and bake for 30 minutes, until the jambons are puffed up and golden. Don’t worry if some of the filling oozes out the sides.

10. Using oven gloves, carefully remove the trays from the oven and put them on a wire cooling rack. Let the jambons cool completely before putting them in an airtight container. They will keep in the fridge for up to three days, ready to pack into your lunchbox.

Now You're Cooking! by Jolene and Lily Mae Cox

• Now You’re Cooking! by Jolene and Lily Mae Cox (€30) is available in all good bookshops.
• Monthly membership of the One Yummy Mummy online Family Cooking Club with access to two live cookalongs per month and all past classes costs €10.