8 Cooking Apps That Teach Kitchen Skills And Expand Palates

Though possible, your kid may not eat snails like a fearless French child or gobble tongue tacos from that whole steer in your backyard meat locker. If you’re still having trouble getting anything besides grilled cheese past their picky palate, one surefire way to expand their flavor profile is to get them cooking. These 8 apps will familiarize your kid with everything about the kitchen — what’s healthy, what’s delicious, how to prep, measure, and cook by following a recipe, and where the pots and pans get put away after they do the dishes.

Toca Kitchen 2

This sequel invites kids to chop, blend, fry, cook, and otherwise mix and match up to 70 ingredients, from chicken to monster beets (presumably those go in the Big Salad), any way they like. The kitchen is a typical free play Toca world, resulting in recipes so ridiculous you’ll be glad they’re being sampled by virtual characters, not actual dads. $2.99 ( iOs) (Kindle) Free ( Android) $0.10 ( Windows) Ages: 6-8

Foodo Kitchen

Turn your preschooler into the next great baker and cake decorator with the help of some hungry, hungry monsters. Besides fostering artistic and culinary creativity, this app teaches your kid a couple of valuable lessons. First, not all monsters eat children. Second, not all monsters eat your cupcakes — picky little buggers. That should teach your kids not to thumb their nose at your next casserole. $1.99 ( iOs) Ages: 3-5

WeCookIt

Whatever your kid loves, or you’re determined to get them to love, you’ll find a recipe for it in the most popular family cooking app on the market. No games or crazy critters — just a digital recipe book full of retina-quality photos, step-by-step instructions, shopping lists, allergy alerts, and even a timer. Just in case your kid wanders off to play and leaves you to cook alone. They’re still kids, after all. $2.99 ( iOs) Ages: 9-11

A Day In The Market

Send your kid on a virtual trip to market with a little Filipino girl and her Nanay in this app adaptation of the first Filipino National Child’s Book Award winner. They’ll interact with vendors and learn counting, sorting, and cooking — in 2 languages! The illustrations were actually tested and approved by 100+ schoolchildren, though it’s unclear how many ultimately took over the family grocery shopping duties. $2.99 ( iOs) Free ( Android) Ages: 3-6

My Little Cook Collection

This bundle includes 3 My Little Cook apps that, together, cover the 3 primary kid food groups: Snacks, Cake, and Pizza. (Hands up if those were still your 3 main food groups until you had a kid.) Each game features 10 recipes kids can cook on the screen or in real life, which is considerably tastier. $2.99 ( iOs) (Android) Ages: 5+

Henri Le Worm

Along the journey to help Henri find his missing cookbook, kids discover all about food and cooking … and nature and bugs. Included healthy recipes are designed for them to help and everyone to enjoy. Never mind that you’d be utterly disgusted to find a worm in your dinner — it all works together when presented by an adorable, mustachioed invertebrate with a charming French accent (voiced by Simon Pegg). $1.99 ( iOs) $2.12 ( Android) Ages: 3-8

Duckie Deck Sandwich Chef

Kids create silly sandwich faces using different fresh foods covering carbs, proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals. Picky eaters and blossoming chefs alike will delight in making and then devouring their hilarious — and of course well-balanced — creations. The only question is, are they allowed to make hot dogs? $2.99 ( iOs) $1.99 ( Android) Ages: 3-5

Tiggly Chef

This game works with Tiggly Math, an app-toy hybrid where kids use physical blocks to solve screen-based math puzzles that teach numbers, addition, and other early concepts. The blocks are the only physical product here as your kid won’t make any real food (sorry, you’re still on the hook for dinner), but maybe that’s just as well when the in-game recipes include dishes like “Spicy Hula Monkey Cake.” Free ( iOs) (Android) (Kindle) Ages: 3+