Teach Your Teen to Start Cooking With These Easy Meal Ideas
Something amazing happened recently: my teenage son stole some of my food. He is predatory, but at the same time attentive. So when I said, “OK, you can take some of my leftover chili, but you’ll have to replace it,” he agreed. And thus he began to prepare (some) food for himself.
I usually cook myself a bunch of weekend meals to eat all week. We’ve got a cooking guide here if you’d like an unobtrusive introduction to the topic; you might even want to send that link to the hungry teen in your life. So when he wanted a bowl of my chili with rice, I taught him how to make his own.
Cooking is great for a hungry teenager. I was shocked to learn that my child was perfectly happy to eat real food full of vegetables and protein when they were readily available. Instead of finding half-empty cereal bowls around the house, I started finding nearly licked containers of homemade chili peppers. (Cleaning up after ourselves is a skill we’re still working on.) My kid and I made sure to start labeling our respective dishes with our own names, and so far, peace has reigned in our family.
Start with macaroni and cheese
I’m pretty sure the first thing I cooked for myself on the stove was boxed macaroni and cheese. This is a great starting point for kids, even before they’re in their teens: teach them how to fill a pot with water, turn on the stove, wait for it to boil, throw in pasta but not a bag of cheese , and set a timer to make pasta not digested. Once they get the hang of it, you can even encourage them to add meat, vegetables, seasonings, and smoother sauces to the mac and cheese.
Mix pasta and sauce
Here’s a cool thing about kids who can make macaroni and cheese out of a box: they can also make macaroni . Pasta plus a jar of sauce is a complete meal, and the sauce is even made from vegetables. Teach them how to reheat store-bought frozen meatballs, or better yet, cook a large batch of homemade meatballs together.
Make ’em work in a rice cooker
While it’s not that hard to cook rice on the stovetop , I have to admit that a rice cooker is more convenient. Personally, I was too proud to buy a rice cooker until I had a hungry teenager (I cooked rice on a damn fire without burning the bottom, thank you very much), but now that I have one, I use it all the time.
Teach your child how to properly fill the machine and turn it on and they will work. If you are currently buying rice one small bag at a time, find out what kind of rice they like best and buy one of those giant bags of rice.
Teach them chili from cans
Here began the first real cooking for my son. This is my laziest and easiest way to cook and is amazingly nutritious. I fill a one-liter soup jar halfway with rice and the rest with chili peppers. This is such a simple recipe that even a real child can cook it.
- Pour a batch of rice into the rice cooker to make 4 cups.
- Brown a pound of ground beef or ground turkey in a skillet.
- Add the appropriate amount of store-bought chili (or homemade equivalent if you like).
- Pour into a 14 oz jar of dried black beans.
- Pour into a 14-ounce jar ( not drained ) of diced tomatoes.
- Divide the rice and then the chili among four containers.
As a bonus, the first time you do this can also be fun for you: we had a whole Bean Daddy moment when I realized my kid has no idea how to use a can opener. (Unlike bean dad, I gave him a few hints and he opened jars of beans and tomatoes in minutes.)
Share the good news about fried vegetables
Many of us have bad memories of wet vegetables from our childhood, and it is not until adulthood that they learn that there are much more appetizing ways to eat plant-based foods. And even if your own child was picky about vegetables when he was little, there’s a good chance he’s ready to start tasting more vegetables around the same time he starts sniffing everything else in the kitchen.
Therefore, teach them the easiest and most delicious way to cook vegetables:
- Preheat oven to 425 or so.
- Chop or wash the vegetables if necessary (you can shorten this process by purchasing, say, a bag of frozen broccoli). Stack them on a baking sheet.
- Drizzle generously with the oil, salt, and seasonings of your choice, then stir to distribute.
- Cook until they are soft in the middle and crispy around the edges; we have a manual with specific times here .
These vegetables can be combined with any of the above meals or eaten on their own. Vegetables, rice, and your choice of protein (more on that in a moment) make cooking quick and easy.
Fried chicken or chicken parts
Before you start teaching your teenager how to butcher a raw bird, start with the end product: buy him grilled chicken. These precooked birds are hot and delicious. Their meat can be eaten fresh without any additional seasoning, and leftovers are easy to mince or chop. Give them a whole grilled chicken. They will be delighted. Then help them pack the leftovers (assuming there is any) in containers. Chicken pieces are a great addition to a plate of rice and vegetables or a pasta dish.
But why stop there? Roasting a whole chicken is not difficult at all . I prefer to butter it up, stick a remote-read thermometer into my chest, and ignore it until it’s cooked. For a quicker meal, take your child shopping and show them how much cheaper chicken legs are than just about any other meat. Hips, seasoned with any seasoning, can be a cheap and easy protein component of a weekly diet.
Bake a cake from a box
After all these delicious and healthy meals, what about dessert? Children often learn to bake before they cook properly, simply because it’s more fun. Teach your teen how to bake something if he doesn’t already. If they already know the main idea, ask them to tell you about the recipe, making sure they know the steps you may have taken for them in the past. Where is the mixer stored, for example, or how to grease the pan.
Box mix is an easy place to start, but it’s easy to swap out for a loaf of homemade banana bread or a batch of Snickerdoodles from scratch. And make sure they share some with you. After all, you taught them.