How mini chefs gets families cooking together

Our Mini Chefs programme is designed to encourage parents and children to cook together in a fun and easy way.

The Mini Chefs recipes are all healthy, low-sugar and contain a fruit or vegetable. Favourite recipes so far include pizza empanadas, pumpkin muffins, kale pesto twists, sweet potato brownies and even chocolate hummus.

Cooking with small children can be daunting to parents. The mess can put people off and of course, it’s very hard to stop toddlers licking the bowl before you’ve even got started.

With that in mind, Mini Chefs is designed to be as easy as possible for parents and carers to take part in. 

The sessions are organised by our chef Mandy Mazliah. Mandy is a mum of three and has a vegetarian children's food blog at Sneaky Veg and a seasonal veg blog at Cook Veggielicious.

Early Mini Chefs sessions took place face-to-face but it soon became clear that we would need to move online because of the pandemic.

In some ways this was a blessing in disguise as it has allowed more people to take part. We send out ten recipe packs each week, which are delivered to people’s homes by our wonderful volunteer cyclists.

These packs include pre-weighed ingredients so it’s very easy for people to join in. 

Our youngest participant is just over one-year-old and we’ve been glad to see older siblings taking part too whilst home educating during school closures.

Getting kids to cook has been proven time and time again to help them to try new foods, make healthier choices and, above all, feed themselves. Learning to cook is, after all, an important life skill.

Even toddlers can get involved in helping to cook. Simple tasks such as chopping soft vegetables with a child safe knife, spreading and mixing are perfect for little ones to help with.

The feedback from participants has been overwhelmingly positive. Mum, T said: “When we started receiving the mini chef packs, I  didn’t realise how much my 3 year old son and I would love cooking. He gets so excited when he sees the delivery guys drop off the pack and can’t wait to put his apron and hat on. Even when we don’t receive packs, as soon as he sees me cooking he grabs his stool and is ready to help out.”

See past recipes on our YouTube channel.

To register your interest in future Mini Chefs sessions please email info@healthylivingplatform.org