The Best Cookbooks for Kids 2024

The BEST Kid Cookbook on This List:
This children's cookbook is filled with real family meals your kids will love to cook and has been loved by thousands of readers but is newly updated and expanded for a new generation of kid cooks.

SUMMARY:
Learn To Cook Amazing Meals with Tons of Fun Family Recipes

Are you ready to have a blast in the kitchen and learn how to make the best food you ever tasted? Step by step, this cookbook will show you how to cook the way grown-ups do, but with your favorite flavors! These recipes are perfect for kids because they use simple ingredients, don’t take a lot of work and most cook in just one pot or pan. Along the way, you’ll learn important skills, such as how to cut foods with or without a knife, how to brown ground meat, how to cook noodles and how to use an oven safely.

With so many tasty choices, you can enjoy a laid-back weekend morning by cooking up a wonderful breakfast treat for everyone, such as Cinnamon Sugar & Pecan Monkey Bread. Or choose an amazing dinner such as School Night Chicken Fajitas, Better than Buttered Noodles and Magic Crunchy Coated Fish. You can even make your own favorite restaurant foods like Chicken Finger Dunkers or Mix and Match Seasoned French Fries.

The original Ultimate Kids’ Cookbook has been a treasured resource for thousands of families. This new and expanded edition features 20 brand-new recipes and a totally fresh makeover, now with stunning full-page photography for every recipe and hand-lettered illustrations. With this cookbook at home, you will have a complete guide to making nutritious and delicious meals with confidence for the ones you love most.

The BEST Kid Baking Book:
Sometimes the best way to entice a kid into the kitchen is with baking a sweet treat together. The desserts in this baking book are perfect for any holiday or special event all year long. Readers have won church baking contests and brought the star dessert to family holidays using recipes from this book!

SUMMARY:
Take the Lead Baking Treats You and Your Family Will Love

This time you’re in charge of making dessert instead of your parents! Master what all the best bakers know, from separating eggs to creaming butter and sugar together and even rolling your own cookie dough. Each skill you learn will make you a next-level baker so you’ll be ready to deck out the Thanksgiving table with a Thankful-for-You Cake Pop Bouquet, wow a friend with Birthday Sprinkle Donuts or bake Smart Cookies for back to school. With something for every celebration, your friends and family will be amazed at all the wonderful treats you can bake.

Now that you’re the head baker at home, you can make each dessert your own with unique decorations! Choose your own shapes for the Gingerbread Cookie Cutouts. Finish off your cookies and cakes with Sweet Buttercream Frosting using your favorite colors and flavors. Top Confetti Cupcake Cuties with any sprinkles you like. Once you’ve mastered all the decorating basics, you can put your skills to the test with the Epic Chocolate Layer Cake.

Full of fun desserts for any day of the year, The Ultimate Kids’ Baking Book has all the tips, tricks and treats you need to become the best baker ever!

Mostly for Parents, Excellent Introduction for Toddlers

A practical, hands-on cookery book that makes it as easy as possible for parents, grandparents and carers to have fun cooking with a toddler aged 1 to 4 years old.

Everything in Tickle Fingers is completely toddler appropriate with minimal need for adult intervention – no hobs, no sharp knives, and no raw meat – and has been carefully selected to emphasize all the activities toddlers love to do: squishing, sorting, mixing and pouring.

Great Book for Parents and Preschoolers Together

Celebrating 25 years of vegetarian recipes and called "the gold standard for chidren's cookbooks" by the New York Times, Pretend Soup, by celebrated Moosewood chef Mollie Katzen, offers children and families easy recipes for healthy, fun, and delicious food. Mollie Katzen, renowned author of The Moosewood Cookbook, and educator Ann Henderson bring the grown-up world of real cooking to a child’s level. Children as young as three years old and as old as eight become head chef while an adult serves as guide and helper. Extensively classroom- and home-tested, these recipes are designed to inspire an early appreciation for creative, wholesome food. Whimsical watercolor critters and pictorial versions of each recipe will help the young cook understand and delight in the process. Just consider all that can be explored in the kitchen: counting, reading readiness, science awareness, self-confidence, patience, and, importantly, food literacy. Pizza, after all, does not come “from a telephone.”

Best Vegetarian Kids Book

Here are the most kid-friendly vegetarian favorites from the New York Times bestselling cookbook The Forest Feast, along with 20 new recipes; ideas for kids’ parties; and easy-to-follow instructions for parents and children on techniques, measurements, and other helpful kitchen aides.Food blogger Erin Gleeson serves up kid-friendly vegetarian recipes that are quick, easy, and fun to make. Her full-color cookbook showcases the rustic simplicity of the fare through vibrant colorful photography of Gleeson’s beautiful home in the woods and of children cooking the dishes themselves. Each meal is simple and full of fresh and lively flavors that will appeal to kids. The natural beauty of Gleeson’s surroundings and the abundance of local produce serve as the inspiration for recipes such as:

• Pesto Pepper Pizza
• Rainbow Chard Quiche
• Black Bean and Kale Tacos
• Nutty Couscous
• Lemon Ricotta Crostini with Honey
• Carrot and Zucchini Ribbon Pasta
• Butternut Quesadillas
• Peanut Butter–Avocado Shake
• Watermelon Smoothies
• And more!

Written By Kids for Kids

Cookbooks for kids often focus on bland “child-friendly” fare, but the authors of Chef Junior, five young cooks between the ages of 12 and 15, challenge that assumption.

Instead, they present a repertoire of healthy, delicious, and inventive recipes that range from easy to advanced. Kids will love these dishes and drinks, including Tiramisu French Toast, Coconut Chicken Nuggets, Garden Fresh Pesto Pasta, Peach Cobbler, chocolate-y No-Bake Cookies, and Mango Lemonade, along with perennial favorites like mac ‘n’ cheese, hamburgers, pizza, and tacos.

In addition, children will learn how to set up a working pantry and shop for healthy, high-quality ingredients; use kitchen tools (including knives) safely and skillfully; and create meal plans the whole family will enjoy.

Great Life Skills for Teens

Cooking provides curious teens with a fun, creative outlet while teaching them lifelong skills. With simple recipes and step-by-step instructions, this introductory cookbook for teens guides young chefs-to-be from the first day in the kitchen to cooking full, flavorful meals for the whole family.

For Teens or Adults

Whether a teen is looking to make Tik Tok-worthy sticky buns or a simple egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches before school, The Complete Cookbook for Teenage Chefs has something for everyone. With recipes ranging from Biang Biang Mian (Hand-Pulled Noodles) to Steak Tacos with Charred Corn Salsa, Arepas to Congee, French Fries and Cheeseburger Sliders to Apple-Cider Donuts, this book features helpful sidebars to ensure that teens can learn more about why a recipe works, and how to take their recipes to the next level.

For Parents to Cook for Kids

Your challenge: Packing a healthy lunch for your picky little eater. Your solution: The bento box!

Little Bento is your ultimate bento guide to planning, preparing, and assembling yummy, wholesome, easy bento box lunches that your kids will actually eat. Say “buh-bye” to the stress of getting your kids to eat, and “hello” to the deliciously simple bento box with:

What sets this book apart from other baby cookbooks:

• Over 100 seasonally-inspired bento recipes and 32 photos of fully-assembled bento boxes for easy guidance
• Expert guidance from mom, food blogger, and bestselling author of Little Foodie, Michele Olivier, who shows you how to make balanced bento meals using the #1 selling kids' lunch box
• A weekly bento meal planning worksheet with helpful tips for planning your bento lunches in advance
• Quick reference bento ingredient lists assist in making safe decisions for food sensitive or allergic eaters

For Parents to Cook for Kids

Pack your child a healthy, tasty lunch the easy way! Each lunchbox focuses on just one nutrient-dense homemade component that can be prepped ahead of time for easy grab-and-go options on busy days.

Prep a big batch of Carnival Copycat Corn Dogs and stick them in the freezer― they’ll defrost just in time for lunch. Make The Best Chinese Takeout Copycat for dinner one night and you can pack the leftovers in the kids’ thermoses later that week.

And what could be easier than letting your child assemble their own lunch with a chapter full of healthy Lunchables ® copycats.

For Parents to Cook for Kids

Through stunning recipes and hosting tips from Sandy Coughlin, founder of the recipe and hospitality blog, Reluctant Entertainer, Big Boards for Families shows you how to artfully craft and serve food boards to your close friends and family. Piece together these bountiful spreads with a variety of ingredients and options that allow you and your guests to customize every dish.

Playful Food for Kids to Make But Still Delicious

From Rapunzel's Frying Pan Eggs to Ariel's Sea Turtle Cupcakes, this beautiful cookbook is filled with delicious recipes inspired by the Princesses' many adventures.With simple step-by-step instructions, mouth-watering photos of each dish, and helpful tips from the Princesses themselves, this cookbook makes it easy to whip up some kitchen magic!

For Parents Struggling with Family Dinner

Jenny Rosenstrach, and her husband, Andy, regularly, some might say pathologically, cook dinner for their family every night. Even when they work long days. Even when their kids' schedules pull them in eighteen different directions. They are not superhuman. They are not from another planet.

With simple strategies and common sense, Jenny figured out how to break down dinner—the food, the timing, the anxiety, from prep to cleanup—so that her family could enjoy good food, time to unwind, and simply be together.

Using the same straight-up, inspiring voice that readers of her award-winning blog, Dinner: A Love Story, have come to count on, Jenny never judges and never preaches. Every meal she dishes up is a real meal, one that has been cooked and eaten and enjoyed at least a half dozen times by someone in Jenny's house. With inspiration and game plans for any home cook at any level, Dinner: A Love Story is as much for the novice who doesn't know where to start as it is for the gourmand who doesn't know how to start over when she finds herself feeding an intractable toddler or for the person who never thought about home-cooked meals until he or she became a parent. This book is, in fact, for anyone interested in learning how to make a meal to be shared with someone they love, and about how so many good, happy things happen when we do.