With only a couple of simple ingredients and a few minutes of your time, you can easily make Playdough at home for your kids to enjoy. And, guess what? It's not as messy as the real stuff.
How many of you moms and dads have a love/hate relationship with store-bought Play-Doh? I love it because it keeps a child busy for minutes upon minutes. I hate it because it crumbles and is entirely messy! Because of this, I stopped buying it for Judah and requested his grandparents not buy it for him, as well.
Then I started feeling bad that I was taking this fun part of his life away. What child doesn't have memories of playing with Play-Doh!? Of course, my most vivid childhood memory of Play-Doh was watching a classmate in preschool take a huge bite out of his dough, then crying because it tasted so bad.
But, was I stifling Judah's creativity?
When we lived in Southern California, a good friend from our church introduced me to homemade playdough. It was right before we moved across the country, though, so I never snatched her recipe. Or, if I did, we never had the time to make it before packing up and leaving. Fast forward to a few months ago - I decided to finally look up a recipe and try making it myself.
Great decision!
I could not believe how easy it was to make playdough in my own kitchen! It was so easy, in fact, that I ended up making a few batches right in a row. It took up maybe a half hour of my time to make three total batches. That's nothing!
Judah had fun picking out the colors he wanted, then continued to play with the dough for hours. It is still a favorite way to spend his play time.
We store ours in quart sized zipper bags, and use our big batch of cookie cutters to cut out fun shapes with the dough. The dough stays together much better than store-bought Play-Doh and it doesn't smell bad at all. But, as curious as you may be, don't even try to take a bite out of it. I may or may not be speaking out of experience... <A-hem! Cough-Cough!>
Recipe Card
Easy DIY Homemade Playdough
Ingredients
- 1 cup water
- 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup salt
- 2 Tablespoons cream of tartar
- Gel-based food coloring
Instructions
- In a medium to large sized saucepan, mix together the water and vegetable oil. Stir in the flour, salt and cream of tartar. Mix in drops of food coloring until it reaches your desired shade of color.
- Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until the dough forms into a ball and is no longer sticky. This will take around 4-5 minutes and will go through different stages of looking smooth to chunky to crumbly. But, keep stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan. It will eventually form a dough ball and will pull away from the sides of the pan.
- Remove dough from the pan and transfer to a paper plate or wax paper to cool. Once it is cool enough to handle, knead the dough until smooth. This part is fun for the kids!
- Store the finished playdough at room temperature in a quart-size plastic zipper bag.
- Source: Artsy Fartsy Mama
Notes
Nutrition
Jenna says
GREAT recipe! I doubled the recipe and add just three drops of blue food colouring -- ended up with a nice light teal! We played with it while it was still warm. 🙂
Thank you!
Maria C says
I wrote a comment about how much we love this recipe, but I forgot to add that my older daughter didn't like the doughy smell so I added about 3-4 drops of peppermint essential oil. It smells so good now! However, DO NOT let children eat any that you have added essential oils to! Next time I am going to try vanilla and/or cinnamon like someone else suggested. My daughters are 3 & 4 so I don't have to worry about them trying to eat it.
Nikki Gladd says
Such a great idea, Maria! Thank you for sharing!
Maria C says
This is the best recipe ever! I made it this morning for my daughters and an hour later it's still soft and malleable. I did a couple things slightly different. I added a few drops of regular food coloring to the water before mixing it with anything else so I could see the color and get the color I wanted. I then mixed the ingredients together in the sauce pan over low heat. I got scared at first because it looked so lumpy, but I remembered you writing that it would go through stages. I kept stirring with a wooden spoon and maybe a minute or two later, I had a beautiful dough ball. I made orange because my girls have been asking for that color because of pumpkins all around and Halloween around the corner. The color was pretty, but I'm going to try to find the gel coloring to try for brighter colors.
Jucara says
Great recipe came out wonderful , thank you for sharing my grandchildren are enjoying countless hours of playing with it!
Nikki Gladd says
I love hearing this, Jucara! Glad you were able to use it with your grandchildren. Thank you for the feedback. 🙂
Anonymous says
This was awful! It came out all chunky and crumbly and the food coloring never mixed in. Trying to find a new recipe. May have to go back to the store brand.
Nikki Gladd says
I'm sorry you had a bad turn-out! This recipe works for me every time (and I've made this countless times). Others have told me they've had great results, too. Maybe you're using the wrong kind of food coloring or mixing it in at the wrong time. Also, if you cook it too long it will be crumbly. Try again!
Sara Bargas says
Hi Nikki,
Made this and bread dough for my kids when they enjoyed this stuff. Made it my my grand kids too. My recipes are packed up in storage right now so thought I would try your recipe on my little neighbors downstairs as a gift. Six wonderful little ones being home schooled and lively! I'll let you know how great flu mom is! Thanks for sharing @:^D
Lyndsi says
This recipe is awesome! It turned our great, and was so easy! Thank you!
tara says
How long does it stay good for?
Nikki says
Hi Tara. A long time, if you keep them sealed in a zipper bag. I still have two of the dough balls from this post. (The others, Judah left out to dry.) 🙂
Tara says
Thank you! I'll get cooking then! I want some for our super bowl party!
Nikki says
Fun idea!
Jacqueline says
Awesome recipe! Turned out great and I even used water-based food coloring and the colors were great and didn't rub off. Great for a cold, snowy day activity!
Shandy Staggs says
Hands down BEST PLAY-DO RECIPE EVER!!! Thank you so much! I just added a touch of vanilla and cinnamon for better smell :). Thank you!!
Nikki says
I love that idea, Shandy! Thank you! 🙂
Penny says
I wanted to make this for my kids since we are snowed in so wouldn't you know it I didn't have enough cream of tarter so I used all baking soda instead. It turned out great even used food coloring for dying eggs and it was no mess at all. I made 3 batches and they are playing with it as we speak. Thank you for the recipe its saving my sanity!
Nikki says
That's great, Penny! I'm so glad the baking soda worked for you! 🙂
Valerie says
This turned out wonderfully. I made two batches for my daughter, one red and one green. I gave her some plastic Christmas cookie cutters to play with and she had Christmas playdough.
Nikki says
Yay! Great idea to do Christmas colors and Christmas cookie cutters! 🙂
Brie @ Entrée the Giant says
Awww, my mom used to make homemade playdoh for us kids (all four of us crazy, crazy kids) when we were little. I'll have to ask if she used this same recipe 🙂
Memories...sigh.
Sommer@ASP says
Fun, fun, fun!! My kids would love this!
Gerry @ Foodness Gracious says
This is the same recipe I use for Quinn's preschool. Yup when he enrolled I signed up to be playdoh dad and make it every two weeks 🙂
Nikki says
HAHA! That's awesome, Gerry! So, do the kids call you "PD" for short? 😉