Best Kids’ Kitchen Tools for Food Exploration
by Taryn Alper, MA, CCC-SLP/TSSLD
Getting young children involved in cooking can get messy, but I promise it’s worth it. An easy way to give kids a new way to interact with food is by using a kitchen tool. Variety is the spice of life, after all!
For a child who’s a severely selective or picky eater, just being in the kitchen as food is getting prepped could be a lot to handle. There are graduated ways to help desensitize a child to feeling comfortable around preparing foods old and new to them. If a child is hesitant to directly touch a specific food with their fingers, using a tool could be a smaller step before that.
Kitchen tools can also help vary how you serve foods you already have at home. Having some inexpensive new tools can influence new recipes. Encouragement to use kitchen tools is also a way to help prevent kids from going on “food jags” where they may eat the same limited foods, then suddenly stop eating them because they’re over them.
Here’s my list of recommended kitchen tools with Amazon affiliate links based on what I use at home:
Crinkle cutter: beet fries, carrots, sweet potatoes, parsnips, apples, turnips, peppers, watermelon
Cookie cutters: All kinds!
Spiralizer: zucchini, cucumbers
Grape cutter: grapes, cherry tomatoes, pitted olives
Egg slicer: eggs, strawberries, avocado, banana
Citrus juicer: lemon, lime, orange
Melon baller: melons, cucumber, zucchini
What other kitchen tools do you use with your child?