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Of course, children who want to start cooking don't necessarily need cookbooks made specifically for kids. They can learn from cooking alongside you, or from reading regular, non-illustrated cookbooks, or even from their favorite YouTube cooking channel (teeny-tiny bowl of carbonara, anyone?). But, just as giving kids their own set of tools to cook with can make them feel independent and empowered, having their own cookbook, especially one that both appeals to their interests and includes recipes they're excited about, can be similarly inspiring. Here are seven cookbooks for kids that we love:
1. The Forest Feast for Kids
This book is simply beautiful. Lovely hand-drawn lettering, beautiful pictures, and cute illustrations draw you in. But the art is also highly instructive: there's an illustrated list of tools you'll need for cooking and beautiful photos that break down cutting techniques in a way kids will understand. The food in this book is all vegetarian. It's also—well—a little fancy. But it's fancy without sacrificing simplicity (i.e. kids will be able to make these recipes independently). Think: dried apricots topped with goat cheese, dried cranberries, and a tiny sprig of thyme; lemon-ricotta crostini; strawberry salsa; edamame hummus. The recipes rarely have more than three steps, and each step is accompanied by a small photo. The dishes are elegant enough to be served at an adult dinner party, but simple and instructive enough for kids to make on their own. It's also full of relatively healthy recipes, none of which require complicated or esoteric ingredients.
The Forest Feast for Kids: Colorful Vegetarian Recipes That Are Simple to Make, by Erin Gleeson
2. The Harry Potter Cookbook
If your kids love Harry Potter, nothing is going to inspire them to get in the kitchen like this cookbook. Some of the best parts of the Harry Potter books are the rich descriptions of the holiday feasts at the Great Hall. With this book, your kids can make Harry's favorite dessert (treacle tart, of course). They can make the mince pies that Mrs. Weasley sends Harry every Christmas, and the pumpkin pasties from the Halloween feast scene I loved reading as a kid. They can even make Mrs. Dursley's pudding—the one Dobby destroys in the beginning of The Chamber of Secrets. As long as you don't mind your kids going down the weird meat-pie, haggis, and Scotch collop–filled path that is the world of British food, this book is sure to be a hit.
The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook: From Cauldron Cakes to Knickerbocker Glory--More Than 150 Magical Recipes for Wizards and Non-Wizards Alike by Dinah Bucholz
3. Pretend Soup
This beloved children's cookbook comes from Mollie Katzen, the author of the Moosewood Cookbook—a vegetarian cooking bible. Each recipe is illustrated as a comic; each step is illustrated in a comic box. The recipes all have whimsical names that will appeal to kids, like "Pretend Soup" a kind of early iteration of a smoothie bowl made with orange juice and bananas and honey. "Zucchini Moons" are really just sautéed veggies with cheese on top—but they're presented in a way that just might convince kids. And the recipes are instructive about more than just cooking: "Number Soup" is a recipe for fruit salad that has kids counting out each ingredient. Simple and fun, this cookbook is full of healthy recipes you'll love making with your kids.
Pretend Soup and Other Real Recipes: A Cookbook for Preschoolers and Up, by Mollie Katzen and Ann Henderson
4. The Silver Spoon for Children
This cookbook features more cute, illustrated step-by-step instructions, along with photographs of finished dishes. But this time the focus is on Italian food: the book is packed with recipes for regional Italian dishes like panzanella, baked eggplant with tomato sauce, and pizza dough. It also contains recipes that are slightly more complicated and main-course worthy than the previous two cookbooks, like roast leg of lamb in an herb crust with stuffed tomatoes, and baked cod with vegetables. With lengthier instruction pages about Italian cooking, techniques, and safety, this is a good selection for slightly older kids who might already have shown an interest in cooking and want to dive deep. But it's perfectly accessible for beginners, too.
The Silver Spoon for Children: Favorite Italian Recipe
5. Cook in a Book Series
If you're looking for a book that helps little kids learn the basics of cooking, the Cook in a Book series is perfect. With single-subject, graphically illustrated books dedicated to pancakes, tacos, and pizza, these books function as both regular picture books as well as cookbooks: the book leads kids through one basic recipe. It's also interactive, with pull-tabs and flaps that demonstrate the dumping and mixing process. Use it to make pancakes with your toddler, or just read it aloud.
Cook in a Book Series, Pancakes!: An Interactive Recipe Book, illustrated by Lotta Nieminen
6. Fanny at Chez Panisse
Chef Alice Waters of the famous farm-to-table restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkley not only started an entire food movement, she also wrote an enduring classic that's one of our favorite cookbooks for kids. The beautifully illustrated book begins as a children's story about growing up at Chez Panisse, told from the perspective of Waters' daughter Fanny. ("In July I help pick the flowers from the zucchini plants up at the farm. We use them to make stuffed squash blossoms.") The latter part of the book is filled with recipes, in addition to advice about choosing ingredients. ("You want to eat a chicken that's been eating good things itself. They're usually the ones that come from farms where they take the best care of their birds and give them lots of room.") Plus, and not surprisingly, Fanny at Chez Panisse doesn't dumb any of the food down. There are recipes for lemon sole fried with breadcrumbs, corncakes with fresh corn, blackberry ice cream, and roast potatoes with garlic mayonnaise, but the book also includes recipes for pizza and pasta and quesadillas (made Chez Panisse–style, of course). This is a beautiful book that will teach kids to truly love and respect food and quality ingredients. You'll have it forever.
Fanny at Chez Panisse: A Child's Restaurant Adventures with 46 Recipes, by Alice L. Waters
7. The American Girl Cookbooks
When she was growing up, my coworker Kat loved the original American Girl cookbook, a spiral bound tome that includes recipes from three points in American history: 1854, 1904, and 1944. "I had a Victorian-style birthday party, just like Samantha, complete with petits fours and peppermint ice cream," she told me. "And Samantha's corn oysters—a small corn pancake that was popular in the 1900s—was a favorite recipe for me and my sister." Although the original version that Kat loved is only available used on Amazon now—and the most recently published American Girl cookbook is more focused on modern-day cooking—there are other cookbooks linked to several of the historical dolls that are widely available online as well. Your kids can cook Civil War–era food with Addy, Depression-Era meals with Kit, and food from New Mexico with Josefina, thereby learning a bit about history and culture in addition to cooking.
American Girls Cookbook: A Peek at Dining in the Past With Meals You Can Cook Today
