Pampered Chef Launches Its First-Ever Kids Cooking Kit Just in Time for Summer

From building confidence and healthy eating habits to learning new skills, the benefits of teaching kids how to cook are backed by science. But on a busy weeknight? Enlisting the help of little hands in the kitchen can feel like more trouble than it’s worth—unless someone takes the guesswork out making mealtime more kid-friendly.

Pampered Chef is setting out to do that with the launch of its first-ever cooking kit designed for kids. It’s a box full of easy recipes, fun kitchen tools, and new ingredients to try, delivered straight to your door. We tested out the inaugural Dough Much Fun Kids Club box, a pizza-inspired cooking adventure available now for families looking for fun new summer activity. 

The New Pampered Chef Kids Club Experience

This year, Pampered Chef is celebrating its 45th anniversary by staying true to its mission: helping families make mealtime easier and fun. “We know that nearly 7 in 10 parents believe it’s important for their kids to learn how to cook but are short on time and unsure of where to start,” says Mary Walker, senior manager of experience and innovation at Pampered Chef. The new Kids Club offering aims to solve this problem by simplifying things, she says.

Parents can expect recipes with easy steps kids can tackle and quick cooking times. Kits don’t come with all the ingredients you’ll need, but rest assured the grocery list will be short if you have to shop because many recipes feature items you’ll likely already have on hand. 

Boxes can be ordered online from Pampered Chef with new offerings released each season. 

What’s Included in Each Kids Club Box? 

Each box is filled with goodies that encourage cooking as a fun way to teach math and science, as well as essential life skills children will take with them into adulthood. Here’s what you can expect, plus a sneak peek inside the box which launched June 1, 2025, and costs $35.

3 easy step-by-step recipes 

Each box includes three on-theme recipes: a “cooking” option, a “baking” option, and a “wildcard” option. Think one meal, one dessert, and a bonus recipe you can choose to tackle to up the ante. For example, you can opt to buy dough to use in the first pizza-inspired Kids Club box, or make one from scratch using the wildcard 5-minute dough recipe. (Which actually took only 5 minutes and turned perfectly golden brown in the oven. Win-win!)

A kid-friendly kitchen gadget

If your child isn’t totally sold on learning to cook yet, the surprise kid-friendly cooking gadget that comes in every Kids Club box may seal the deal. Each themed box revolves around finding as many fun ways as possible to use a new tool kids get to keep. With dough as the theme, the first box includes Pampered Chef’s Hand Pie & Pocket Maker that cuts and seals dough to create either Pizza Pockets or Churro-Beignets, your two recipe options.

A new pantry staple 

To cut down on one-time buys for a single recipe, each box includes a new pantry staple to introduce fun flavors without the fuss. Think oils, seasonings, and baking mixes. The first box features Everything But the Pizza Seasoning, a blend of Italian spices which can be used on everything from pastas to veggies. Bonus: All seasonings are gluten free and easy to substitute if you have any allergies or picky eaters.

How To Engage Kids in the Kitchen

Pampered Chef Kids Club boxes are curated for children ages 6-12, but if children have been in the kitchen from a young age, they may be able to tackle parts of the adventure a few years sooner, Walker notes.

Getting kids excited to cook begins with making the kitchen a fun place to be, not a place of failure, explains Kate Strickler, creator of Naptime Kitchen and author of the book I Just Wish I Had a Bigger Kitchen: And Other Lies I Think Will Make Me Happy available in August 2025. With this in mind, the best recipes for engaging kids feature age-appropriate steps, whether it’s dumping, stirring, whisking, or measuring, so they can get involved successfully.

“When they are younger, I like to think of cooking more as assembling,” says Strickler, a mom of four. “Start with, ‘Can you add the turkey and cheese to the sandwich for me?’ or ‘Can you put the biscuits on the pan to go into the oven?’ These small things build the confidence that they can be helpful in the kitchen, and as they get older, they can start to do more.” 

The right tools matter, too. “We have kids’ knives in varying degrees of sharpness, a kids’ peeler, and aprons,” says Strickler. “I highly recommend getting these smaller, safer versions to begin. It’s easier for the child to hold and less stressful for you to manage.”

Here are a few more tips for getting young kids involved in the kitchen so they can join the fun:

• Start small. For young kids who may be in the kitchen more out of necessity than anything else, give them the feeling of helping rather than a task. “A plastic knife and a soft piece of fruit is where each of my kids started,” Strickler says. “Very little mess, low stakes, and they could snack as they went.” 
• Assign individual tasks. When tackling a recipe together, decide what steps would be easy for your child to do and assign them specific tasks to prevent everyone from getting overwhelmed. “You will be shocked how quickly they pick things up and can move on to more difficult tasks,” Strickler says.
• Pick a recipe that excites them. If your kid would never dare turn down a brownie, they probably won’t turn down helping you bake a fresh batch. “Each of my kids learned to crack an egg into a small bowl early on, and I am almost positive they learned this skill when we made Ghirardelli boxed brownies,” Strickler says.
• Make fun a priority. “More than anything, you are simply wanting to show them that the kitchen is fun and not scary,” Strickler says. Allot for a little extra time, add some music, and let kids loosen up so they are more likely to fall in love with cooking.