Eva Longoria Shares Advice On How To Make Cooking Fun For Kids - Exclusive

Eva Longoria is not only a successful actress, she's a busy entrepreneur. Between producing shows and running her tequila company, it's also important for her to spend quality time with family. While promoting the 2022 Pillsbury Bake-Off, she told Mashed in an exclusive interview that nothing brings everyone together like when she's cooking a delicious meal. "Everything in my family centers around the kitchen, every conversation, every bit of laughter in the house," Longoria said. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

The "Desperate Housewives" alum revealed that she particularly likes making meals with her 4-year-old son, Santi. "I started Santi cooking and getting his hands into things very early," she shared. "I got him one of those stools. It's like a toddler ladder. You push it up against the counter, so they can get up and be right beside you."

Longoria said that when he was just 18 months old, she also got him some plastic fruit, so he could pretend to chop it up alongside her. "He loves cutting things, and there's these little kid knives that he would start using," she explained. "Cracking eggs was one of the things I did early with him and I didn't care if he broke a dozen eggs."

The Golden Globe nominee revealed that she doesn't mind if Santi gets food everywhere because he's enjoying the process. "Now, he's only four, and he's an expert egg cracker because he's been doing it forever," she said. "[He can] throw flour all over the kitchen. I'm not precious about, 'No, no, no. Oh, you're going to get dirty. Don't do that.'"

The Texas native said that she takes everything in stride because she wants her son to ultimately have fun making a meal. "You've got to be really free with them in the kitchen, so they can have a love for food," Longoria explained. "That's where it starts. If they start cooking and preparing their own food, their palate expands, because they're like, 'Oh, this is where it comes from.'"

She said that's different then just setting food in front of them and hoping they eat it. Longoria takes Santi to the store with her to pick out the ingredients, so he's able to see all that's involved. "Then we come home, and we wash it, we cut it, we cook it, we season it," she added. "We do it all together and he realizes, 'I did that.'"

To participate in the Pillsbury Ovens Off Bake-Off Contest you can visit their website. Eva Longoria's cookbook "Eva's Kitchen: Cooking with Love for Family and Friends" is available on Amazon.