In the first article in a new Cooking with Kids series, Charlie Cart Project Founder and cookbook author Carolyn Federman dishes on cooking with kids with a set of recipes that make it easy to learn, bond and eat deliciously with kids of any age.

The Charlie Cart Project equips kids and families with the skills and confidence to make healthy food choices for life through hands-on cooking programs. With a fully-stocked mobile kitchen—“The Charlie Cart”—and a robust set of recipes and support, the Charlie Cart Project provides schools, libraries, and community organizations with the tools and training to teach kids how to cook and build lifelong health through the power of food.

In my work teaching kids to cook, I’ve learned a number of universal truths:

If they cook it, they will eat it
Cooking builds confidence far beyond the kitchen
When they are grown, they will cook the things you made together

This selection of simple recipes below, drawn from across the ckbk collection, will bring fresh inspiration to cooking with your kids. Put them into rotation and together you’ll gain skills and confidence without sacrificing sophisticated flavor. And for all those Charlie Cart educators tuning in, you’ll find a few modifications to make these recipes more than do-able in your classroom, library or wherever you teach!

If your kids are not super excited to get into the kitchen, make sure your first recipe is a home run. Select a dish you know they’ll love and keep it simple. If they are already game to cook with you, small challenges—like new ingredients, techniques or tools will help keep them engaged.

Kids like working with their hands!

Flatbreads are tactile, simple and delicious and they open up entire worlds of history and culture. Start with a simple flatbread with just a few ingredients, such as this Saag Roti from The Food of India that is cooked immediately after making the dough for some (nearly) instant gratification. Spinach and cheese in the batter ensure these quick flatbreads are soft and savory. Roti recipes traditionally call for atta, a type of finely milled wholewheat flour from Indian wheat varieties. A mix of standard whole-wheat and all-purpose flour will also work, though will yield a drier bread.

Arepas can be made sweet or savory; they are made with fresh corn and traditionally filled with cheese and or meat, but you can add whatever you like—a runny egg, a cabbage salad, some pickled vegetables. Anything goes! Bonus—arepas are gluten free. This slightly sweet version—Arepas de choclo from Secrets of Columbian Cooking by Patricia McCausland-Gallo is made with fresh corn and melado (also known as piloncillo), a type of sugar common in Mexican cooking. Brown sugar or jaggery are fine substitutes here.

The Vietnamese dish Bánh xèo, featured in Robert Danhi’s Southeast Asian Flavors, is a crispy pancake cooked to order, made with a rice flour crepe batter, topped with fresh vegetables and dipped in sweet-and-sour sauce (for an at home version, a squeeze of lime will do the trick). Coconut milk in the batter lends a mild sweetness that will appeal to young palates and turmeric gives a bright yellow glow that practically begs to be eaten. Fun fact: bánh xèo, means "sizzling cake" and is an onomatopoeia for the sound of the batter sizzling as it is poured into a hot pan.

If you’re cooking on the Charlie Cart: Limited ingredient flatbreads such as roti, tortillas and pupusas are easy to prepare in a classroom setting. Arepas (cooked one by one) and yeasted flatbreads that call for rest time for the dough, require more time and are better suited home cooking. Bánh xèo require a very hot pan so make sure your Charlie Cart is in a well-ventilated location for this recipe.

Experience the magic of caramelization

Vegetables…they can be a battleground! But, I haven’t seen a child yet that doesn’t change their tune on vegetables when they’ve been roasted to the point of sweet caramelization—especially if they were involved in the cooking. Roasting is the easiest way to prepare vegetables, and the most transformational.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Cauliflower blends well with nearly every spice and kids will love the crispy salty sweetness. This is a great confidence builder—once kids get the hang of it, they can come up with their own seasoning mix; and it works well for very young children who can simply pull the florettes apart by hand—no knives needed. Try Roasted cauliflower and cumin (from Joon by Najmieh) or Roasted cauliflower with garlic and parsley (from Gjelina by Travis Lett). Or make up your own…

Any vegetable can be prepared this way, with olive oil and simple seasonings. These roasted squash recipes are perfect for chilly autumn weather and will appeal to adult tastes as much as children or teens: Tamarind roasted squash from Meat-free Mowgli by Nisha Katona, Roasted acorn squash with brown butter and hazelnuts, or Roasted yams with lime yoghurt (both from Gjelina by Travis Lett).

Have a budding chemist in the kitchen? Learn with them about the browning reactions that change their vegetables from mild to intensely sweet, in Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen

Calling all Charlie Cart-ers! Roasted vegetables are an easy cooking lesson anytime of the year. Pick your favorite vegetable in season, and roast simply with olive oil and salt in the Breville oven. ckbk offers a huge variety of roasted vegetable recipes for inspiration, or create your own. Use the roasted kale or brussels sprouts recipe in the Charlie Cart Curriculum as a guide for timing and creating a lesson plan and you’re on your way.

Eggs are the gateway food to all things savory!

Open that door and never look back! Eggs are a great tool for teaching flavor combinations and basic cooking with heat. Start with this recipe for Creamy scrambled eggs from Niloufer Ichaporia King’s My Bombay Kitchen, that teaches skill and patience with a sautee pan.

Add vegetables, move from stovetop to oven, and make it a frittata. Frittata’s are so agreeable! They are open to whatever you throw at them - the kitchen sink of kitchen sink recipes. Use leftover vegetables, meat or fish, with any hard cheese and you’re good to go. Check out ckbk’s Fab Frittata Feature for a whole frittata selection or go with this simple basil, parm and potato version from Marcella Hazan to get the basics down.

Eggs make a quick and simple anytime meal that kids can easily master. Get into breakfast for dinner (or whichever meal you fancy) with these richly flavored Chilaquiles from Oaxaca by Bricia Lopez and Javier Cabral. Note that the recipe doesn’t give specific instructions after frying the tortillas. If you’ve never had chilaquiles, think of it like a casserole dish—prep your toppings first, except the eggs. Fry the tortillas, then fry the eggs, and layer the garnishes on top of the cooked tortilla pieces with the egg on top. While it may be a little blasphemous, I have been known to use good quality tortilla chips and warming them in the pan with a little oil instead of frying. Charlie Cart Educators take note!

The most important ingredient in cooking is curiosity. Learn together about the weird, funny or grave history of your dishes, their provenance, and what it takes to produce the ingredients—and guaranteed your child will be hooked. What recipes do you like to cook with your kids? Let us know, and stay tuned for the next installment of our quarterly Cooking with Kids series.

Coming up later in the series:

A few fundamentals
A sauce is worth a thousand recipes
Feel like a chef

About the author

Carolyn Federman is the founder of the Charlie Cart Project, a nonprofit that provides tools and curriculum for hands-on food education. Prior to Charlie Cart, Carolyn worked in food education for more than a decade, leading Alice Waters’s Edible Schoolyard Project, consulting on policy and program development for the Jamie Oliver Foundation, co-founding the Berkeley Food Institute, co-producing UC Berkeley’s Edible Education course with Michael Pollan, and teaching cooking in her children’s schools. Carolyn lives in Berkeley, California. Carolyn is the author of New Favorites for New Cooks (Ten Speed Press, 2018), a starter cookbook for children of any age.