How to Be a Kitchen Witch in 11 Simple, Essential Steps (2024)

Have you been called to the realm of kitchen witchcraft? Maybe as a child you watched your grandmother cook in the kitchen, and she seemed to make magic every time she prepared a meal. Maybe you’re the homemaker of your household and long to add magic to your daily life. Domestication isn’t a dirty word in your book – it’s liberating! It’s inspiring! But you’re wondering how to be a kitchen witch. It’s not difficult, but I will lay it out for you here in these essential steps.

First, What is a Kitchen Witch?

We should define this special path before getting into the steps on how to be a kitchen witch. A kitchen witch, also called a cottage or hearth witch, is someone who makes magic in the kitchen and in the home using food and everyday items as magical tools. The kitchen witch is able to center his or her energy through the making of magical meals and creating sacred space at home. For busy moms, dads, and people in general, working magick into mundane tasks makes magical practice that much more enriching and easier. You won’t have to worry if you’re “doing enough” in your practice…because you’ll be practicing every day naturally.

I love this practice of witchcraft for so many reasons. In addition to having a natural way of incorporating the craft into the everyday, you’re also weaving magic into your family life with ease. Everything you make with your hands in your kitchen is imbued with your energy, with SPIRIT. And then is given to your family and to yourself. This is inherently magical. Being mindful of what you are doing in the kitchen is enough to shift your food, beverages, etc. from just mundane to a beautiful charm or spell. You can also easily connect with your ancestors in the kitchen since the hearth you tend is the hearth your ancestors have tended for thousands of years.

How to Practice Kitchen Witchery

1. Learn Your Magical Herbs & Spices

The most important tool a kitchen witch has in her pantry is a decent supply of herbs and spices. If you’re a good cook, you probably already own all the herbs and spices you need. Much magic can be found in simple herbs and spices like: cinnamon, pepper, salt, oregano, basil, and more! To learn more about the magical herbs and spices already in your pantry, click here. The kitchen witch knows how to use herbs and spices for various magical purposes, adding them to meals and making them into medicine.

2. Make Magical Meals

A magical meal is a spell or ritual to the kitchen witch. The process of planning the recipe, gathering the ingredients, and cooking the meal is pure alchemy. The kitchen witch takes ingredients and transforms them into something else entirely – nourishment to the body and soul. When learning how to be a kitchen witch, it is essential to learn how to cook a magical meal. From the recipe ingredients and their magical properties to the energy put into the meal, every step in the cooking process is important. Learn more about cooking a magical meal here.

3. Kitchen Spirits

The kitchen witch works with spirits of the hearth. These spirits might include the household guardians, kitchen guardians, the ancestors, and hearth gods and goddesses. In ancient times, every hearth had a guardian spirit, and the family acknowledged and worked with that spirit. The kitchen witch gives offerings to the household and hearth spirits in return for help with the chores. Learn more about household spirits here.

4. Sacred Space

To a kitchen witch, the entire house is sacred space. Make magical decorating a part of your practice. Make your entire house sacred space by adding magical itemssuch as house plants, seashells, pictures of nature, crystals, candles, incense, essential oil diffusers, and other modern magical items. Making one’s own cleansing and blessing rituals are crucial to keeping your space free of negative energy and open to positive energy.

5. Kitchen Tools

To the kitchen witch, kitchen tools are his or her magical tools. His or her athame is a kitchen knife. A wand is a wooden spoon. Every appliance in the kitchen becomes magical when dedicated to the art of kitchen witchery. The stockpot doubles as a cauldron. The teapot brews herbal potions. The oven transforms ingredients into magical meals. Cleanse and consecrate all of your kitchen tools you plan to use in your magic.

6. Kitchen Altar

The kitchen witch often sets up and tends to a magical kitchen altar. The altar can be on top the kitchen counter, a kitchen shelf, or anywhere you see fit. Candles, offerings, and figurines can be placed on the kitchen witch’s altar. I’ve seen everything from vintage kitchen witches to miniature cauldrons and skull-patterned tea cups used candle holders! Make your kitchen altar a space for the kitchen gods and spirits and as a daily reminder of your unique practice. Ancestors are also welcome and easily invoked in the kitchen.

7. Kitchen Grimoire

Every witch has a grimoire or Book of Shadows, and a kitchen witch is no exception. Your grimoire might look a bit different from the next witch. It will hold family recipes, herbal knowledge, and kitchen witch secrets in its pages. A kitchen grimoire can be a recipe book, three-ring binder, or a simple composition book! I find recipe books with blank cards to be best for magical recipes and herbal tidbits.

8. Diving Deep as a Kitchen Witch

I’ve often noticed witches who get “bored” or “un-inspired” with their craft after a short time of practicing. This is because they are forgetting to dive deep into their craft. An example of diving deep into kitchen witchcraft is to research and study your ancestors’ foods. Then make those foods as offerings or purely as a magical way to connect. Or research gods, mythology and the foods within. I knew a kitchen witch who not only grew her own food, but also kept chickens and bees. She studied the art of bee-keeping and used the honey in her magick.

9. Magical Teas and Infusions

The kitchen witches I know (including myself) LOVE making magical teas, brews, infusions, tinctures and much more. Teas become offerings to gods and ancestors. Infusions and decoctions become spells in your cup. In addition, leaving tea leaves in your cup allows you to read the tea leaves to tell your future. This form of divination is called tasseomancy. Simmering potpourris, sprays, and powders can all be made in the kitchen by the kitchen witch.

10. Read about Food Lore and History

One of my favorite things to study as a kitchen witch is the folklore and history of food. Did you know beer has been made for thousands of years and was once used to pay the laborers who built the Egyptian pyramids? Did you know that cheese has a magical history and is said to “en-spell” a woman when given a piece by a desiring man? The lore and origins of food will fascinate you and you’ll be able to include these tidbits into your kitchen rituals and spells.

11. Using Your Witch’s Broom

Many witches of the past had a broom that they used to not only clean their floors but to also “sweep away” bad energy. Do you have a broom that you use to sweep your kitchen? Consider blessing it and while using it, focus on cleansing bad vibes at the same time. A few things to consider: don’t sweep at night (it disturbs the spirits) and don’t sweep on a Monday (you’ll sweep all your luck away). And never take an old broom to a new house. You don’t have to go buy a new or fancy broom. Use the one you have.

Read More About Kitchen Witchcraft:

1. Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Wicca in the Kitchen by Scott Cunningham
2. The Mystic Cookbook by Denise and Meadow Linn
3. Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs by Scott Cunningham
4. Celtic Folklore Cooking’ by Joanne Asala
5. 20,000 Secrets of Tea by Victoria Zak
6. Cottage Witchery by Ellen Dugan
7. Alchemy of Herbs by Rosalee De La Foret
8. The Kitchen Witch by Soraya
9. Rosemary Gladstar’s Medicinal Herbs, A Beginner’s Guide
10. The Natural Witch’s Cookbook by Lisanna Wallance
11. Kitchen Witch: Food, Folklore, and Fairy Tale by Sarah Robinson
12. The Witch’s Feast: A Kitchen Grimoire by Melissa Jayne Madara

More Kitchen Witchery:

• Magical Sun Tea Recipes
• Tea Witchcraft: Making Magic with Tea
• Kitchen Witchcraft: Turn Any Recipe Magical