Cooking camps

Cooking camp for kids allows your budding chef to indulge his or her love of food preparation. For kids and teens who love time in the kitchen, it’s the perfect way to pass a week of the summer. Find summer cooking camps listed below, along with cooking classes, PA Day and March break camps. You'll also find overnight camps or day programs with broader curriculum that includes cooking activities.

These are ideal for children as young as 7, continuing right up to sessions for teens and beyond. Often, camps are run in conjunction with culinary academies, set within a professional environment, and conducted by professional chefs who love teaching food preparation. Weekly sessions are often run around a specific theme, such as the food of a certain region, or a specific style of cooking. Daily schedules may revolve around different meals, snacks, dessert preparation, international cuisine variations, and more. Some camps or sessions will lead up to a cooking competition that adds to the fun of camp.

These are a wonderful way for kids to immerse themselves in varied cooking techniques and cuisine culture. Kids get hands-on practice with professional utensils under caring tutelage. There are many other aspects to cooking that kids can learn here, including kitchen safety, working with others, and exploring their creativity.

Skills they develop here have applications elsewhere, including managing complex projects and understanding the importance of following instruction and procedures. Preparing food can also be a springboard to a range of science topics. Learning here will apply to things as varied as health and fitness to nutritional science and chemistry.

In all cases, the goal is to have a good time, make some friends, and get some valuable hands-on experience in the kitchen. At cooking camp, kids can truly have their fun and eat it, too. Get your junior master chef or budding Rachael Ray into one of the cooking camps listed below.