The Montessori Kitchen: A Parent?s Guide to Nurturing Your Child?s Curiosity, Confidence, and Connection to Food

The kitchen is the ideal Montessori learning environment at home, and now award-winning cookbook author Kristen Miglore and bestselling Montessori author Junnifa Uzodike team up to create a hands-on guide for parents and children to play and learn together through cooking.

The kitchen is the perfect playground for children to tackle new skills and experience everything―the play, the science, the math, the magic―that preparing food has to offer. New groceries coming in and out. Colorful vegetables being washed and prepped and cooked. Different ingredients being scooped and measured and transformed, with so many points along the way to see, smell, touch, taste, and listen. And endless opportunity for conversation with their grown-ups.

The newest book in the bestselling Montessori series offers parents a new way to think about time spent in the kitchen with their young children, with over 60 delicious, nutritious, interactive recipes. The fun starts before baby is born, with nourishing foods for the pregnant and postpartum parent. The book takes parents through those early months in the kitchen wearing―and talking to―baby while prepping dinner, to creating baby and toddler friendly areas in the kitchen, to developing those first kitchen skills, eating together, and fostering their growing independence in the kitchen.  

Children can practice scooping and pouring with Pantry Hunt Granola, exercise agency with Juicy Tomato Caprese Salad, hone fine motor skills with Sweet Potato Gnocchi, and cultivate patience with Blueberry Yogurt Pops. And through it all, experience the Montessori way of growing and connecting in the kitchen.  

Kristen Miglore is a New York Times bestselling cookbook author and was the founding editor of Food52. After being nominated for a James Beard Award for Food52’s Genius Recipes column, she wrote the cookbooks Genius Recipes, Genius Desserts, and Simply Genius, all IACP Award winners. Her writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Real Simple, Bon Appétit, and Saveur. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and her favorite cooking teachers, her young daughter and son. 

Junnifa Uzodike is the co-author of The Montessori Baby and The Montessori Child, international bestsellers that have been translated into more than 25 languages. Her second book, The Montessori Child, was the silver winner of the 2026 Nautilus Book Award. She is an Association Montessori Internationale (AMI)-trained Montessori educator with diplomas spanning every stage of development, from birth to age 18. She serves on the Executive Board of the AMI and is an internationally recognized Montessori leader, speaker, and advocate for children and families. She is the founder and head of school of Fruitful Orchard Montessori School in Abuja, Nigeria, where she lives with her husband and four children.