These Get Kids Cooking ideas are part of a sponsored post for Farm Rich. The opinions are honest.

Get kids cooking by inviting them into the kitchen to prepare family meals!

Ever since Lydia was able to stand on a step stool, she’s been in the kitchen cooking with me. I have so many photos of her adding ingredients to my stand mixer while sitting on the counter, stirring batter at her little kid table, rolling out pizza dough on a wooden block. She’s gotten to the point now where she can prepare a few things, like pancakes and macaroni and cheese, with minimal assistance. That means it was time to get her in the kitchen to prepare a full dinner! Here are easy ways to get kids cooking!

Get Kids Cooking – Menu Planning

I’m trying to get more consistent with meal planning. We have a whiteboard on the refrigerator that I use to plan out a basic menu for the week, with Lydia’s assistance, of course. We try to always do Taco Tuesday with from-scratch tortillas she helps me make. She requests a few of her favorite ingredients be used throughout the week and helps me plan the actual dinner ideas. She recently helped me come up with Asian Cabbage Wraps that were delicious! But she’s always looking to be more independent, so she learned to make these pork sliders all on her own… with a little help from Farm Rich! Here’s what Lydia had to do to help prepare this meal.

Get Kids Cooking – Make It Easy

First, we got a package of NEW Hand Pulled Pork Sliders from Farm Rich. These are available in the frozen section of Walmart, Kroger and other retailers. They are microwaveable, packed with 13 grams of protein per serving {an excellent source}, and make a filling snack, game-day grab, or satisfying main course option. Each carton contains 6 sliders with hickory-smoked, hand-pulled pork with a sweet and spicy barbecue sauce on a soft roll. The hand-pulled pork is slow-cooked by expert pitmasters for more than 8 hours at Farm Rich’s barbecue plant in Gallatin, Tennessee, outside Nashville.

To make the Pork Sliders, she removed them from the package and followed the directions on the box. Bonus: kids can learn awesome reading and math skills while they have fun cooking! Following directions on a box? This is easy stuff for a junior culinary expert like Lydia! A serving size is two pork sliders, so each box makes three servings. Two minutes in the microwave, and they are ready to serve!

Get Kids Cooking – Prepare Balanced Meals

Since we already had our protein on the plate, we needed to add some vegetables. Lydia actually really likes steamed veggies, especially broccoli and cauliflower. If your children would like to cook independently, they can easily microwave their favorite vegetables that are pre-cut in steamer bags or just steam the pre-cut vegetables in a lidded pot with a little water at the bottom like Lydia is doing here. They can be seasoned with a little butter or olive oil, salt, and pepper. A prepared deli item like macaroni salad or potato salad completes this meal. I’ve learned that allowing your children to make choices about what they eat and help prepare it definitely leads to more eager eaters, and it makes meal time a little more fun for the parents!

Farm Rich snacks, appetizers and BBQ are made with wholesome ingredients. They can be prepared quickly and offer easy, feel-good foods your kids will enjoy! With a wide variety of products ranging from Mozzarella Sticks and Meatballs to BBQ entrees and Grilled Cheese Sticks, there are snacks and entrees for everyone in the family. Head to the freezer section to find Farm Rich products (or use the product locator on their website).

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I shared some fun tips for teaching your kids to cook.

How do you get your kids cooking?

Pin this Get Kids Cooking image below for inspiration!