Parents: Do this if you want to get your teens cooking

What you’ll learn from this article: how to get your teens cooking (and an easy recipe for a teenager to make)
The pay-off: set them up to win early, so that they want to do it again and again

So you want your teens to learn to cook. And you’re looking for an easy starter recipe for a teenager to make. You could of course go straight to the recipe, but if you are serious about leading your teen into learning to cook, then you’ll need to do more than just put them in the kitchen with the recipe! In this post, we’ll look at what engages and supports them, and ultimately what puts wind under their wings so that they can fly in the kitchen!

The gateway recipe to help them fall in love with cooking

To get this right, you’ll need to understand a bit about what drives and engages people to enjoy a new challenge, and then more specifically what might drive your teenager to do it.

For example, we tend to enjoy more the things that we get better at. And we tend to get even better at the things that we enjoy more.

That’s worth thinking about. There’s a growth loop. Anyone can step into it, not by forcing themselves to enjoy something more (although you can always come up with more enjoyable ways to do things if you’re creative enough) but by striving to get a little better at something.

Learning to improve, whether it’s finding an easier, better, faster or just a more effective way to do something, so that we create a better result, tends to put a smile on our face. The reward makes us want to do it again. So we do it again, which gives us a new opportunity to get even better at it. And that’s how we take off!

But of course, the weakest link in the chain is usually just getting started. You’ll need to engage your teenager in the right way to get them interested. This is how I did it with my teenage daughter Ellie. You can follow this ‘recipe’ with your teen, and at the end of it, there’s an actual recipe for a meal to start them off with that most teenagers would love, and it gives them plenty of opportunity to be creative and make it their own.

OK, do this:

1. Help them get excited about making, serving and eating the meal!

Don’t be ‘pushy’ to get your teenager to cook, be ‘pully’. That means set the vision up to attract them and pull them along. It means turn the volume up on their desire, so that they like the thought of both the journey (cooking it) and the destination (eating it).

Tell them that you have a great recipe (the tastiest dish they’ve ever eaten! Why? Because they’re going to adjust the flavour until it really is the tastiest they’ve ever eaten!).

Tell them that it’s broken down into the easiest steps to follow (all of our UpCooked recipes are, which is why they’re almost teenager-proof to follow) and they can follow along on their phone, checking off the steps as they go.

Tell them that they can make it how they want, with their music on, and with a drink or snacks of their choice by their side! You’ll supply the snacks, set the table, and do the washing up perhaps. Your job as parent is to make their experience totally enjoyable and rewarding. Get that right, and they’ll do it again, and you’ll have successfully onboarded them!

2. Convince them that it’ll be easy for them, with no downsides

Whilst we need to make mistakes in order to learn, save them for later. For this first recipe, support your teenager to succeed every step of the way! This is really important.

Don’t take over – but do demonstrate what you need to, then let them try. They should be learning by observing then doing. And most of all, protect them from mistakes, otherwise the wheels might come off! It’s often said that we should encourage mistakes to help people learn. That’s true, but not when you’re at the sensitive stage of ramping up initial buy-in to learning something! Make them feel like they’re winning all the way in this first recipe and keep growing that smile on their face. That’s your main goal.

Try to discover their main driver for wanting to do this. Are they in to the art or the science? Are they motivated by the desire to eat the final product? Or do they want to see the faces of your family as they proudly serve it up? Maybe they just like to work with their hands and create?

3. Let them make it their own (and make it the tastiest dish of this kind they ever had)

On the one hand, some people love just following a recipe. That’s fine. But also, people have different tastes and it’s good to let them make it their own to suit. So let your teenager steer it. We have suggested 10 recipes for them to start with (via our ’10 meal challenge’ emails which you can sign up to here). But if you’re supporting them, we highly recommend THIS RECIPE: Ellie’s quick tomato pasta. Why? Because the basic tomato and cheese on pasta is amazing anyway (the addition of balsamic vinegar is probably the magic ingredient). But, like with pizza, you can add your favourite toppings to this dish to flavour it how you like. If they want to add various herbs or spices, they can. Want some ham or pepperoni in there? Go ahead. Add chicken, or tuna, or chopped up sausages if you want.

We recommend giving your teenager this option to make it their own. So that they truly feel they’ve created something to be proud of.

Just ensure that they do taste tests along the way, and adjust the flavour to suit.

Easy recipe for teenager to make

OK, here’s the recipe, and over to you to have a chat with your teenager and follow our three steps above to help them buy in to the idea. Good luck!