Mud Kitchen Recipes for Kids

Is there anything that sums up childhood more than making mud potions? Mud is the very stuff of childhood so here’s our favourite mud kitchen recipes that our kids like making in the garden! We’ve collected lots of ideas for outdoor potions for kids to make in a mud kitchen but they can also be made outdoors in gardens, playgrounds or woods without a mud kitchen! These mud kitchen recipes are a perfect compliment to our mud kitchen play ideas which gives a ton of ideas for all things mud kitchen!

Outdoor Garden Potion Ideas

We hope these fun outdoor potion ideas will keep your kids happily playing in the garden for hours! Some of these outdoor potions use mud and some of them don’t but they guarantee to increase kids outdoor time and help them learn about nature. Potions are a great EYFS learning tool as mixing, quantities and baking skills are all tested when making the best potion! We also have a big list of garden games that are fun for kids and siblings for the garden or great fun for large groups to play in the park. 

Mud Kitchen recipe ideas for kids

Fizzy mud potion

Mud, Bicarbonate of Soda (baking soda), Glitter, Vinegar

What’s more fun than just playing with mud? Fizzy Mud! Mix some bicarbonate of soda with your mud, add some glitter and small amounts of vinegar (try adding to a squeezy bottle) and mix until the mud fizzes! Use a muffin tin or Yorkshire pudding tin for real life cooking experience!

Ice Flower Potion 

Freeze some flower petals or leaves in large containers, let your kids use salt or a warm water spray to try and melt the ice – when all the ice has melted they have a cool potion to play with – perfect for a hot day!

Flower Petal Soup

Flower Petals and Water

This is the most simple of outdoor garden potions. Use petals that have already fallen and kids can mix them to make flower petal soup or flower potions!

Little Flower Pot Shop 

Dried or nearly dead flowers, mud and Mini flower pots

These mini flower pots are the cutest and they are perfect for playing Flower Shops and mixing mud potions! You can buy the mini flower pots from Amazon here and pairing them with dried or nearly dead flowers – your kids will play for hours setting up a flower shop!

Coloured Ooblek

Cornflour or cornstarch, Water, Food Colouring

Ooblek is just the best sensory potion making material there is! It’s a slime that’s both a solid AND a liquid, depending on what you’re doing with it, and it’s perfect as a kids sensory play activity.  Start with one part water in a bowl. Slowly add 1.5 to two parts cornflour, stirring constantly and add your food colouring as you go. Top tip: use soap colourant and this won’t stain little kid’s hands!

Milk flower tea 

Here’s a Flower Tea Party Play idea to use up old, withered flowers and kids will love it! It’s the perfect open-ended play idea. Try using milk or pink water. You could even try adding kid’s teapots and mugs!

Garden Potions for Kids to Make

Seaside Stew

Shells, driftwood, sand and small pebbles

Take memorabilia from your last seaside trip and recreate a seaside stew with beach materials.

Mud Kitchen Play Items for Kids

Outdoor Mud Kitchen Smoothie bar

Why not try setting up an outdoor mud kitchen smoothie bar for kids?! Set out a range of natural objects and let kids mix and choose their own mud smoothies! Here’s some things you could try…..

• Acorns
• Petals
• Leaves
• Dried Flowers
• Dried rice or pasta
• Pine Cones
• Coloured Water
• Biodegradable Glitter
• Shells
• Conkers
• Sand
• Small Pebbles
• If your short on time – Gelli Baff is perfect for quick and easy mud kitchen potion set up, you will need to hose down afterwards though!

Ice flower ice cubes and cornflour

This is a great outdoor mud kitchen recipe idea for hot days! Freeze some ice cubes and drop them into some cornflour. As the ice cubes melt – it will turn into a gloopy mess, a bit like oobleck and it also feels like cold marshmallows. Kids love playing with the texture of this!

Chalk Paint

Broken pieces of chalk, vinegar and bicarbonate of soda and washing up liquid

 Fill a jar half way with vinegar, then stir in bits of broken chalk. Next add a big squeeze of washing up liquid and a liberal helping of crushed petals! Slowly add the bicarbonate of soda, the potion will bubble and froth, fizzing out over the jar and making a gorgeous, colourful potion! The vinegar will break down the chalk and so you’ll be left with the a colourful chalk mixture you can paint with and it will wash off easily!

Garden Cupboard Potions

Got some leftover food or spices that have gone off? Have a good old clear out of the kitchen cupboard and let your kids run wild making potions!

Hope these mud kitchen recipes for the garden give your kids hours of outdoor fun!

More outdoor garden activity ideas for kids!

• 100+ Nature Crafts for Kids to Make – there’s enough ideas here for kids of all ages!
• The Best Outdoor Garden Games for kids
• Spring Outdoor Activities for Kids to do in the Garden

*This Post contains Affiliate Links which means I may make a small commission if you click on the links. It doesn’t cost you any more though and I only recommend products I genuinely love! All thoughts, words and photos are completely my own unless stated*

NB: Some of these products were gifted for review but all opinions are my own (or my kids!).

‘This post has been included in Twinkl’s End of Terms Activities blog.’