Looking for a kids cooking game? Here’s a free one involving nachos — just in time for Cinco de Mayo, game night, or any time you want a game with recipes for kids to follow! This nacho recipe game was first whipped up to go with the book Chicks and Salsa, written by Aaron Reynolds and illustrated by Paulette Bogan, but it’s perfect for playing restaurant, pretending to be a chef, and working on sequencing and gross motor skills. Plus, you could also make these nachos IRL (In Real Life) and see what you think?!
Food games for kids serve up a world of imagination. In this nacho recipe game, kids (and/or grown ups) cut out the ingredients and then match them to the correct card. Once they’ve identified the ingredient they need, they build their nacho chip in matching, sequential, order. It’s a great way to improve hand to eye coordination, and a great activity to review terms like over, under, and in between. These cards also have a Spanish word on each, to encourage kids to learn a word in Spanish here and there as they play.
Whether you’re preparing for a real fiesta or just pretending to busy yourself in a pint-sized kitchen. Cooking games for girls and cooking games for boys are a lot of fun! Here at home, Rosie sets up some folding tables and adds chairs, then seats her dolls. She comes up to the table with a notepad and scribbles their orders. Sometimes we play with this free nacho cooking game. Other times, we play Acorn Soup, pile up pancakes, make a pizza, or assemble mini cupcakes. But we always have fun talking about the ingredients, messing up the order to identify where we went wrong and how to fix it, and creating our own recipes.
Here are some of our favorite kids cooking games and what we like about each.
Acorn Soup – cooking game with recipe cards
The acorn soup cooking game is super cute! This might be Rosie’s favorite or maybe it’s that the pieces are the most versatile? It’s hard to say, she plays with so many toys and likes to mix and match toys as much as mix and matching ingredients! She likes looking at the different recipe cards, finding the ingredients (or suitable replacements from other plastic toy food) and putting them into the soup pot, which is the container everything came in. The pot comes with a wooden, albeit plastic, spoon — that’s a huge hit too. After she completes one recipe, she doesn’t like to be restricted and starts to add all ingredients one-by-one to the pot, a la kitchen sink type soup. Still, the enjoyment this brings is endless. It was our introduction into making pretend recipes and now, well… Chef Rosie has her own set of child-friendly knives. She cuts up strawberries, avocados, and bananas — all by herself! This game has been a life saver in this pandemic. We haven’t had anyone in our home since March 2020, and while I play this game with her often, she also likes to play it by herself.
Pancake Pile-Up! cooking game for siblings or cooking game for friends with a timed element
Build the anticipation and build a pancake… faster than your opponent while using sequencing cards to create your delicious and very speedy pancake. This cooking game for preschoolers encourages kids to quickly interpret sequences with a teeny tiny dash of adrenaline by way of friendly competition. We’ve played this game in our home many times, complete with adding the super cute pretend butter atop for the grand finale. Where are the pieces now? In her toy kitchen! We have to look in pots, baking racks, even empty egg crates for these pieces. “I needed more butter,” she’ll say, when I ask WHERE did it go? I couldn’t be happier that she loves this cooking relay game and that the pieces are, once again, cross-functional. I just wish part of the game for us wasn’t always finding the pieces!
Melissa & Doug Felt Food Pizza Set cooking game for preschoolers
Pizza night is every Saturday in our home but Rosie makes pizza several times each week with this felt food pizza game set. The best part (for the adults) is that it’s calorie-free! This toy is fun, and again — the pieces are everywhere in our home. Last week, Rosie had stuck the toy mushrooms in the veggie drawer of our fridge. So, when I say everywhere, I mean it. That said, we all love this game. In addition to working on counting, colors, shapes, and food groups, we’re now starting to use it as an easy intro to to fractions. The small cardboard pizza box is pure genius!
Disney Princess Enchanted Cupcake Party cooking game for princess fans
What’s not to love? Rosie brought my attention to this Disney princess cupcake toy after seeing it on YouTube Kids. She just had to have it. She stressed it came with recipe cards, just like Acorn Soup, so she knew she’d love it and use it “a lot.” As a sucker for cupcake toys, and a bigger sucker for anything that brings Rosie such drive and joy, I ordered it right away. We play with this toy all the time. It’s great for developing memory and matching skills. It’s also so very pretty to look at. If you have a little princess in your home, we definitely recommend this game, particularly if she’s into cooking or baking.
We hope you enjoy our attempt to make you a kids cooking game! We also hope you’ll check out the toys mentioned above. Let us know which one you’ve tried and what you thought!
