Tips on Organizing a Cooking Class

Organize a cooking class to introduce friends and family to a new cuisine.

Cooking classes allow students to hone their cooking skills and learn new recipes. Students may even be introduced to some new ingredients they have never heard of before. Organizing a cooking class is fairly simple and requires just a bit of research and a lot of enthusiasm for teaching and cooking.

Class Size

Decide how many students you would like to have and how long the cooking class will run. You may decide you want a one-day class or a one-month class, depending on the topic. Knowing your class size in advance will also help you with preparations for the class. If this is your first time organizing a cooking class, you may want to stick with five or fewer students. When you start to feel more comfortable with the process, you may decide later that you'd like to increase the class size.

Payment

Decide how much you'd like to charge for the class and whether you'd like to offer any special promotions. Maybe you'd like to give a discount if a student signs up for three or more classes or give a referral-based discount. Offering a discount for referrals, friends or family members is an effective way to market your business and improve class attendance. When deciding on class fees or promotional offers, just make sure you will be able to cover any costs incurred with the class.

Location

If you are organizing a cooking class for a group of students, you may want to consider renting a location. Some restaurants are closed on certain days of the week, so you could speak with the manager to see whether he'd be open to you using the kitchen on that day. It will save on expenses because you will share the cost of rent with the restaurant and only pay for the time you actually use it. Also, in some cases you may be able to borrow the restaurant's business license.

Preparation

Make sure you have all the supplies, equipment and ingredients to accommodate the class. Depending on the length of the class, you may want to prep some food items beforehand, such as chopping the onions or julienning the carrots to save on time. If you rent a commercial kitchen space, you may be able to borrow their equipment. However, if your class size is small and you are operating out of your home kitchen, you may need to either purchase additional items for the class or ask the students to bring an extra set of knives or even a hotplate.

Recipes

At the end of the class, be sure to give each student a copy of the recipe(s) so they can replicate the dish(es) at home for their friends and family. You can be as creative with this as you like. You could have a photo of a dish on one side of the page and the ingredient list and instructions typed up on the other side and then laminate it to protect it.