Increasing Young People's Basic Cooking Skills and Knowledge

We planned 8 weeks worth of cooking activities for the young people to do in their sessions; the meals that they cooked were chosen and voted on by them the week before. We put the meals in an order so that the young people would learn more and more each week and be able to use their new learnt skills as they go along. 

The young people really enjoyed learning how to cook from scratch, making carbonara, their very own salsa and gauc to go with nachos, making vegetarian dishes like halloumi kebabs, an so much more. We had multiple young people come back saying that their families loved their food and that they can't wait to try the next meal.

Being able to help the young people develop their basic skills and help teach them to cook was great as they might not get the information from school or at home. By helping them see cooking healthy food can be a fun activity instead of a chore, it sets them up to want to help out at home and to prefer healthy meals instead of fast food. We also made sure that the meals we cooked with them were done cheaply and simply - but still tasty! - so that the young people would be able to recreate it no matter their situation at home.