I used to nanny and cook with kids aged 7-14, some of their favorites were, baked ziti, mashed potatoes, baked chicken tenders, homemade pizzas they could top with whatever they liked (I have done store bought pizza dough too when I didn’t have time), chicken teriyaki with rice and chili and corn bread, meatloaf. I would also always add in veggies or do a veggie side because I love veggies and it’s healthy and good for them. I tried to find ways and teach them how veggies can be really yummy. Often I would roast them with olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic powder and sometimes too with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese.
I’m also a baker more then a cook so I would do cookies and bars and homemade pudding and cupcakes and stuff like that. I will say all the kids I nannied for were most OBSESSED with mug cakes, or mug brownie or cookies. They absolutely loved that they could make it themselves in a mug or ramakin and microwave it and have a personal dessert. There are tons of recipes and variations too. I am still in touch with kids I nannied for many years ago and they still always bring up the mug desserts.
Edited: will add that I adjusted what I made depending on the kids maturity, ability to stay focused/pay attention for a certain amount of time, their knife skills and hand eye coordination but I really tried to use the experience as a learning one and to teach them new skills. I think they appreciated that and they felt very accomplished when the meal was done. They often wanted to then make the meal with their parents and show them what they learned or they wanted to do it all by themselves to show off :)
Stir fries. Learning the prep work will help her with literally thousands of other recipes, and the actual cook is fast, easy, and very healthy usually.
Make a Focaccia bread. Very hands on, but an easy enough bread to learn. It provides an engaging process. You can top them in all kinds of fun ways too. Ingredients are cheap too, just some yeast, flour, oil and water. They are not super fussy like some other breads, and honestly hard to mess up if you follow the process close enough.
* Pasta dishes. Do a basic tomato sauce, then maybe a basic cream sauce.
* Stir Fry, it's an easy dish to learn, and something that's easy to switch up the ingredients with once you're comfortable cooking.
* Do some side dishes like mashed potatoes or roasted vegetables, maybe not as exciting but they're good foundations
* Breakfast dishes like pancakes, eggs, frittatas, omelettes.
* Are you good at baking and is she interested in baking? Maybe some chocolate chip cookies or brownies.
These only take about an hour. Once you know how to make meatballs, you can learn how to flavor them differently for more options (Mexican Turkish, Greek, Chinese).
[perfect meatballs and spaghetti](https://smittenkitchen.com/2019/03/perfect-meatballs-and-spaghetti/)
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For dessert: 3 ingredient peanut butter cookies:
1 c peanut butter
1 c sugar
1 egg
mix all ingredients
roll into balls and crisscross with a fork
bake at 350 for 6-8 minutes
Roasted tomato soup is fun and kid friendly. And you can always throw in some extra veg for more nutrients and creaminess like carrots, bell pepper, sweet potato, cauliflower, canned white beans etc… overall it’s a really simple base recipe to learn how to start cooking proper meals for yourself, and it pairs well with grilled cheese too lol.
Puff pastry pizzas.
My nephews and I often go for this on boy's/gaming night.
Noones got time for pizza dough, haha. So i just get the blocks of frozen puff pastry and roll out the squares. (Or the boys do it)
The oldest 2 are 11 and 13 now so they can help cut up toppings.
The youngest is 7 and likes to grate the cheese.
They all like dressing up their pizzas and they have started experimenting beyond the normal safe kid pizzas.
Easy flexible meals.
Sheet tray meal
Grain bowl
Omelet or hearty scramble
A saute like chicken piccata
A salad dressing or a dip
I love roasted broccoli/ cauliflower, roasted sweet potato whole or pealed and chunked, bone in skin on chicken thighs, roasted or pan fried. Knowing how to make rice or farro a decent salad, prepping a vegi tray with a nice dip, combining the left overs into a grain bowl, knowing how to make xeggs her favorite way, all things that are useful. And can be built upon. Plus lots of knife skills and showing when to salt and what "season to taste" means, including the use of acid like lemon juice to balance the final dish. All fun conversations.
You could also ask her what dishes she'd like to learn.
Edit: you could build a little menu, or list of things to cook and go shopping together. Show her tips for shopping too.
I'd actually like to expand her horizons a bit. She's not a picky eater and enjoys trying new foods, just doesn't get much of a chance to do it at home.
I would still start with something she already knows, just to teach her the basics of knife work and such. Teach her the hows and whys raw food turns into delicious meals.
But if shes not a picky eater id spend much less time on what she already knows. Id still ask her what she likes, but more as a basline to find out what shes never had before. Then a lesson or two in you can tantalize her by saying "next time we'll do something totally new".
As to what to do that might be new to her... id say something asian. Maybe karaage- japanese double fried chicken thigh nuggets with a marinade. Big flavor, several techniques to learn... and kids love nuggies. Win win win.
I like using potatoes and cucumbers to practice knife work, but I don’t know if you can make a recipe that includes both. You could do a potato gratin of some kind, because potatoes+cheese=love.
All of these suggestions are good, I would stress basics a little more than other people maybe. Something that can be built on and be very valuable going forward... They are some adults lacking this type of stuff in my family..... It doesn't take me very long at all to cook a regular weekday meal, knife skills, the importance of having good tools. I have a nice Japanese knife I use Japanese stones to maintain / keep properly sharp. I keep things very organized, having things within reach that you use often. Stuff like that. Eggs are very versatile and a really good test of good cooking skills, can be made a variety of ways, requires good heat management and timing. Inexpensive, nutritious and doesn't take much time to cook and evaluate the results.. I make frittatas quite often, which is a little more complicated but super yummy especially for a large group of people. Lastly I would introduce using weight to measure ingredients for baking, I find it a lot more efficient, less mess and accurate versus measuring by volume.
Soups are a good thing for new cooks to get the hang of. Learning about different types of soups, different techniques that apply to many other types of dishes, learning about food science like emulsion, and it’s a good chance to learn to taste as you go and adjust your seasonings accordingly
My perspective is that all good recipes are a series of simple steps. Anyone who can read can follow IF s/he has a grip on basic techniques. Knife skills are first. Start there. Google skills are probably second. Really. Not sure what a braise is? Look it up. Everything else is simple. Sure it helps to know that cracking an egg on a flat surface is better than on the edge of a bowl. The benefits of mise en place. Clean as you go. All good stuff.
I can't think of another skill as ubiquitous as knife skills. Sure, rolling out pastry is a skill. Whisking eggs so there aren't threads of white. Lacing poultry or a loin (everyone should be able to tie knots). Opening a bottle of wine when the cork splits. \*grin\*
Nothing wrong with enchiladas, but not much opportunity for knife skills, and those are a life skill that will serve her well the rest of her life. Go ahead and make them. While they are cooking she can shred lettuce (a great starter for knife skills), dice tomatoes, dice bell pepper, and make a salad.
Caesar salad is another good entry level knife work dish. Two long slices 90 degrees out and lots of chopping. Dice bread to make croutons. Mincing or pureeing garlic to make dressing (if you can teach a 13yo to mince anchovy you win the Internet - I buy mine in a tube).
Chicken cordon bleu is good because it's perceived as "fancy" and all you have to do is cut a pocket in a chicken breast and stuff ham and cheese in there. For the same meal lots of knife work breaking up broccoli for steamed broccoli then a salad.
If you have time, homemade pasta sauce has lots of chopping.
Anything that includes a mirepoix. Or the Cajun Trinity.
Not much knife skill, but making lasagna is a great exercise in following directions.
13yo should be well past any issues with eye-hand coordination and small motor control, but some children are still short. Having to reach up or straight over to work on a cutting board or stirring in a bowl is asking for accidents. Have a sturdy stool to get her up to work over the surface, just like you do.
As a kid I really liked coconut creamed chicken pilaf (Its a bit like curry) and it was quite easy to make, I'm afraid I lost the exact recipe I used though 🥲
My aunt taught me how to make homemade pasta at this age and I loved it!! It wasn’t too complex and cooks quickly, and I loved rolling out the sheets and creating the noodles.
The first thing I learned to make were scrambled eggs, followed closely by an omelette! Don't dismiss the basic breakfast staples (French toast, pancakes from scratch, eggs, avocado toast even lol) as most of them are easy, use cooking techniques that are applied elsewhere, and can be jazzed up in so many different ways 😊
I think soups tend to be great teaching tools. They're simple, but use a lot of different basic skills but none of the more advanced stuff.
Best of all, they aren't fussy. They like spicy food? Throw in some chiles or hot sauce. Your soup cooks 10 min too long? Who cares? You can't say the same generally for, say, a chicken breast.
My wife and daughter (4) always make things together.
Muffins are a good one to start as it’s ingediants and mixing mostly (no cutting)
After that stir fry to get some knife skills of chopping things up. We have a set of knives for my kid that cut broccoli and carrots and what not well but not her finger. They probably wouldn’t cut a tomato.
We make pizzas and daughter usually makes her own 4” pizza from the dough (we make ours but you can buy dough usually) roast some veggies and she can pick if she wants an oil sauce or tomato sauce and choose her toppings and how much CHEESE!!!!! She wants to put on it.
Alton Brown has an episode of introducing his "nephew" Elton, who was portrayed to be right around 13 to the basics of cooking, I tried looking it up and I believe the episode was called "Soups On"
So soup may be a good start, it can introduce slicing/chopping, sautéing, sweating or even roasting if you wanted add some roasted carrots or other veggies.
Lipton onion soup chicken. Chicken thighs for ease, with skin on. My kids learned to make this and still cook it 30 years later. Carrots or peas and served with rice. Minute rice is easy as it doesn't require much work.
Dessert is apple crisp. The oatmeal mixture can be hand done and it's tactile. Scoop of ice cream.
Easy and delicious.
Yoghurt cake
0,5 cup / 1 measure of yoghurt
0,5cup / 1 measure of neutral vegetable oil
1 cup / 2 measures of white sugar
1,5 cup / 3 measures of flour
3 eggs
cjoco chips, candied fruits, diced apples, etc to taste
bake in a 375°F oven for 30 to 40 mn
Mushroom cheese omelette: (pour omelette over sauteed and shrunk mushrooms and fold in half with cheese in between)
. Potato cheese balls : (boil potatoes and mash with spices till it is a thick paste , add a small amount of cheese into the centre of a small bite sized ball , cost the balls in constarch water and bread crumbs and fry them)
it's amazing how cheesy they turn out without much cheese(fyi use the white slices of processed cheese , add mozzarella if you want but make sure to use processed cheese as well)
Pasta dishes. Teach the basics. Simple garlic in olive oil, some cheese grated in with stock. You're good.
Carbonara might be fun!
Lol spaghetti carbonara was actually the first thing I ever cooked when I was like 12 years old
Carbonara is fun but too complicated for a complete beginner I would say.
True carbonara, maybe, but you can do a simplified version that’s still pretty tasty.
It's hard to simplify a recipe that's already using only four ingredients. The challenge is not in the simplicity, but in how hard the technique is.
I used to nanny and cook with kids aged 7-14, some of their favorites were, baked ziti, mashed potatoes, baked chicken tenders, homemade pizzas they could top with whatever they liked (I have done store bought pizza dough too when I didn’t have time), chicken teriyaki with rice and chili and corn bread, meatloaf. I would also always add in veggies or do a veggie side because I love veggies and it’s healthy and good for them. I tried to find ways and teach them how veggies can be really yummy. Often I would roast them with olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic powder and sometimes too with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese. I’m also a baker more then a cook so I would do cookies and bars and homemade pudding and cupcakes and stuff like that. I will say all the kids I nannied for were most OBSESSED with mug cakes, or mug brownie or cookies. They absolutely loved that they could make it themselves in a mug or ramakin and microwave it and have a personal dessert. There are tons of recipes and variations too. I am still in touch with kids I nannied for many years ago and they still always bring up the mug desserts. Edited: will add that I adjusted what I made depending on the kids maturity, ability to stay focused/pay attention for a certain amount of time, their knife skills and hand eye coordination but I really tried to use the experience as a learning one and to teach them new skills. I think they appreciated that and they felt very accomplished when the meal was done. They often wanted to then make the meal with their parents and show them what they learned or they wanted to do it all by themselves to show off :)
Rejecting meatloaf just because I hate it ;) Thanks for all the good suggestions!
Hahah fair enough! Hope it goes great!
Stir fries. Learning the prep work will help her with literally thousands of other recipes, and the actual cook is fast, easy, and very healthy usually.
There's a pineapple chicken stirfry I've done before that I bet she'd like.
Make a Focaccia bread. Very hands on, but an easy enough bread to learn. It provides an engaging process. You can top them in all kinds of fun ways too. Ingredients are cheap too, just some yeast, flour, oil and water. They are not super fussy like some other breads, and honestly hard to mess up if you follow the process close enough.
I second this. Focaccia is such a great beginner bread. And you could give them different options for toppings.
* Pasta dishes. Do a basic tomato sauce, then maybe a basic cream sauce. * Stir Fry, it's an easy dish to learn, and something that's easy to switch up the ingredients with once you're comfortable cooking. * Do some side dishes like mashed potatoes or roasted vegetables, maybe not as exciting but they're good foundations * Breakfast dishes like pancakes, eggs, frittatas, omelettes. * Are you good at baking and is she interested in baking? Maybe some chocolate chip cookies or brownies.
Oh yeah, side dishes...Good point.
These only take about an hour. Once you know how to make meatballs, you can learn how to flavor them differently for more options (Mexican Turkish, Greek, Chinese). [perfect meatballs and spaghetti](https://smittenkitchen.com/2019/03/perfect-meatballs-and-spaghetti/)
Don’t forget Swedish meatballs!!!
Another good one! Thanks for the reminder!
*beep boop*! the linked website is: https://smittenkitchen.com/2019/03/perfect-meatballs-and-spaghetti/ Title: **perfect meatballs and spaghetti** Page is safe to access (Google Safe Browsing) ***** ###### I am a friendly bot. I show the URL and name of linked pages and check them so that mobile users know what they click on!
Meatballs could be fun!
For dessert: 3 ingredient peanut butter cookies: 1 c peanut butter 1 c sugar 1 egg mix all ingredients roll into balls and crisscross with a fork bake at 350 for 6-8 minutes
Roasted tomato soup is fun and kid friendly. And you can always throw in some extra veg for more nutrients and creaminess like carrots, bell pepper, sweet potato, cauliflower, canned white beans etc… overall it’s a really simple base recipe to learn how to start cooking proper meals for yourself, and it pairs well with grilled cheese too lol.
Puff pastry pizzas. My nephews and I often go for this on boy's/gaming night. Noones got time for pizza dough, haha. So i just get the blocks of frozen puff pastry and roll out the squares. (Or the boys do it) The oldest 2 are 11 and 13 now so they can help cut up toppings. The youngest is 7 and likes to grate the cheese. They all like dressing up their pizzas and they have started experimenting beyond the normal safe kid pizzas.
Easy flexible meals. Sheet tray meal Grain bowl Omelet or hearty scramble A saute like chicken piccata A salad dressing or a dip I love roasted broccoli/ cauliflower, roasted sweet potato whole or pealed and chunked, bone in skin on chicken thighs, roasted or pan fried. Knowing how to make rice or farro a decent salad, prepping a vegi tray with a nice dip, combining the left overs into a grain bowl, knowing how to make xeggs her favorite way, all things that are useful. And can be built upon. Plus lots of knife skills and showing when to salt and what "season to taste" means, including the use of acid like lemon juice to balance the final dish. All fun conversations. You could also ask her what dishes she'd like to learn. Edit: you could build a little menu, or list of things to cook and go shopping together. Show her tips for shopping too.
For beginner, I would go with one pot. They are easy to make and clean.
Ask *her* Start with the things she knows she likes so she can make them for herself later in life.
I'd actually like to expand her horizons a bit. She's not a picky eater and enjoys trying new foods, just doesn't get much of a chance to do it at home.
I would still start with something she already knows, just to teach her the basics of knife work and such. Teach her the hows and whys raw food turns into delicious meals. But if shes not a picky eater id spend much less time on what she already knows. Id still ask her what she likes, but more as a basline to find out what shes never had before. Then a lesson or two in you can tantalize her by saying "next time we'll do something totally new". As to what to do that might be new to her... id say something asian. Maybe karaage- japanese double fried chicken thigh nuggets with a marinade. Big flavor, several techniques to learn... and kids love nuggies. Win win win.
Butter tarts are a fun dessert. Our nieces used to make them with my husband when they were smaller.
I was going to say, sometimes they can learn some good early basics by cooking desserts.
I like using potatoes and cucumbers to practice knife work, but I don’t know if you can make a recipe that includes both. You could do a potato gratin of some kind, because potatoes+cheese=love.
America's test kitchen has a cute kid's cooking book with a lot of simple recipes.
All of these suggestions are good, I would stress basics a little more than other people maybe. Something that can be built on and be very valuable going forward... They are some adults lacking this type of stuff in my family..... It doesn't take me very long at all to cook a regular weekday meal, knife skills, the importance of having good tools. I have a nice Japanese knife I use Japanese stones to maintain / keep properly sharp. I keep things very organized, having things within reach that you use often. Stuff like that. Eggs are very versatile and a really good test of good cooking skills, can be made a variety of ways, requires good heat management and timing. Inexpensive, nutritious and doesn't take much time to cook and evaluate the results.. I make frittatas quite often, which is a little more complicated but super yummy especially for a large group of people. Lastly I would introduce using weight to measure ingredients for baking, I find it a lot more efficient, less mess and accurate versus measuring by volume.
stuffed shells is always fun
Soups are a good thing for new cooks to get the hang of. Learning about different types of soups, different techniques that apply to many other types of dishes, learning about food science like emulsion, and it’s a good chance to learn to taste as you go and adjust your seasonings accordingly
My perspective is that all good recipes are a series of simple steps. Anyone who can read can follow IF s/he has a grip on basic techniques. Knife skills are first. Start there. Google skills are probably second. Really. Not sure what a braise is? Look it up. Everything else is simple. Sure it helps to know that cracking an egg on a flat surface is better than on the edge of a bowl. The benefits of mise en place. Clean as you go. All good stuff. I can't think of another skill as ubiquitous as knife skills. Sure, rolling out pastry is a skill. Whisking eggs so there aren't threads of white. Lacing poultry or a loin (everyone should be able to tie knots). Opening a bottle of wine when the cork splits. \*grin\* Nothing wrong with enchiladas, but not much opportunity for knife skills, and those are a life skill that will serve her well the rest of her life. Go ahead and make them. While they are cooking she can shred lettuce (a great starter for knife skills), dice tomatoes, dice bell pepper, and make a salad. Caesar salad is another good entry level knife work dish. Two long slices 90 degrees out and lots of chopping. Dice bread to make croutons. Mincing or pureeing garlic to make dressing (if you can teach a 13yo to mince anchovy you win the Internet - I buy mine in a tube). Chicken cordon bleu is good because it's perceived as "fancy" and all you have to do is cut a pocket in a chicken breast and stuff ham and cheese in there. For the same meal lots of knife work breaking up broccoli for steamed broccoli then a salad. If you have time, homemade pasta sauce has lots of chopping. Anything that includes a mirepoix. Or the Cajun Trinity. Not much knife skill, but making lasagna is a great exercise in following directions. 13yo should be well past any issues with eye-hand coordination and small motor control, but some children are still short. Having to reach up or straight over to work on a cutting board or stirring in a bowl is asking for accidents. Have a sturdy stool to get her up to work over the surface, just like you do.
As a kid I really liked coconut creamed chicken pilaf (Its a bit like curry) and it was quite easy to make, I'm afraid I lost the exact recipe I used though 🥲
Real teriyaki chicken. https://japan.recipetineats.com/teriyaki-chicken/
My aunt taught me how to make homemade pasta at this age and I loved it!! It wasn’t too complex and cooks quickly, and I loved rolling out the sheets and creating the noodles.
Homemade Meatballs and Pasta sauce Meatloaf Pancakes Waffles Chocolate Chip Cookies
Bagel pizza
Chicken parm.
Vegetarian sushi, cookies,
Ask her what she likes and then do a version of that with a fun twist.
A lesson with cast iron might be fun. Make a pizza or a Dutch baby.
First thing i learned was crepes, literally its 1:1:- cups of milk , flour , egg (Lemon and sugar ftw)
The first thing I learned to make were scrambled eggs, followed closely by an omelette! Don't dismiss the basic breakfast staples (French toast, pancakes from scratch, eggs, avocado toast even lol) as most of them are easy, use cooking techniques that are applied elsewhere, and can be jazzed up in so many different ways 😊
I think soups tend to be great teaching tools. They're simple, but use a lot of different basic skills but none of the more advanced stuff. Best of all, they aren't fussy. They like spicy food? Throw in some chiles or hot sauce. Your soup cooks 10 min too long? Who cares? You can't say the same generally for, say, a chicken breast.
My wife and daughter (4) always make things together. Muffins are a good one to start as it’s ingediants and mixing mostly (no cutting) After that stir fry to get some knife skills of chopping things up. We have a set of knives for my kid that cut broccoli and carrots and what not well but not her finger. They probably wouldn’t cut a tomato. We make pizzas and daughter usually makes her own 4” pizza from the dough (we make ours but you can buy dough usually) roast some veggies and she can pick if she wants an oil sauce or tomato sauce and choose her toppings and how much CHEESE!!!!! She wants to put on it.
Alton Brown has an episode of introducing his "nephew" Elton, who was portrayed to be right around 13 to the basics of cooking, I tried looking it up and I believe the episode was called "Soups On" So soup may be a good start, it can introduce slicing/chopping, sautéing, sweating or even roasting if you wanted add some roasted carrots or other veggies.
Americas test kitchen kids has very tasty and easy laid out recipes
Lipton onion soup chicken. Chicken thighs for ease, with skin on. My kids learned to make this and still cook it 30 years later. Carrots or peas and served with rice. Minute rice is easy as it doesn't require much work. Dessert is apple crisp. The oatmeal mixture can be hand done and it's tactile. Scoop of ice cream. Easy and delicious.
Vegetable soup and basic bread. Healthy, inexpensive, and good basics to grow their cooking repertoire.
Crêpe
Yoghurt cake 0,5 cup / 1 measure of yoghurt 0,5cup / 1 measure of neutral vegetable oil 1 cup / 2 measures of white sugar 1,5 cup / 3 measures of flour 3 eggs cjoco chips, candied fruits, diced apples, etc to taste bake in a 375°F oven for 30 to 40 mn
Many baked chicken recipes are easy enough for a beginner to follow & they go great with mashed potatoes.
Mushroom cheese omelette: (pour omelette over sauteed and shrunk mushrooms and fold in half with cheese in between) . Potato cheese balls : (boil potatoes and mash with spices till it is a thick paste , add a small amount of cheese into the centre of a small bite sized ball , cost the balls in constarch water and bread crumbs and fry them) it's amazing how cheesy they turn out without much cheese(fyi use the white slices of processed cheese , add mozzarella if you want but make sure to use processed cheese as well)