Homemade Playdough Recipe

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Most of the recipes on this site are edible. Even the last playdough recipe I posted— Peanut Butter Playdough!

This Homemade Playdough recipe can be edible, but I don’t think anyone’s going to eat very much of it. 🙂 Salty. Very salty.

My kids recently completed a no-video month. It all started with a no-video week. The results were amazing and I just couldn’t go back to letting them watch videos after only one week. I feel like their creativity and cheerfulness rocketed during that month. Although I sometimes now let them watch a little bit each day, their expectations for watching videos have been reset and they are more excited about learning and playing (and they’ve even developed an interest in yoga!)

I have also had to use more creativity coming up with more outings, projects, and activities for us to do during the day. We had a lot of fun making homemade playdough and squishing in the food coloring and essential oils to make it super cool homemade playdough. 

playdough recipe

Homemade Playdough Recipe

Ingredients (makes quite a bit!):

  • 2 1/2 C. salt (I used a whole 26 oz. container, which is a tad shy of 2 1/2 cups)
  • 3 Tbsp. Cream of Tartar
  • 5 C. water
  • 2/3 C. vegetable oil
  • 5 C. all-purpose flour
  • optional: food coloring and/or essential oils for scent

Instructions:

  1. In a large pot, mix together salt, cream of tartar, and water. Turn heat to medium-low and stir every few minutes until water is hot (don’t worry, no need for a boil).
  2. Stir in the vegetable oil.
  3. Add the flour, one cup at a time, stirring after each cup is added. Mix until dough pulls away from the side of the pot and is no longer sticky.
  4. Remove from heat and let cool.
  5. Knead in a few drops of your desired food coloring and/or essential oils to get the color and scent you want.

scented homemade playdough

I am storing our playdough in Ziploc bags. We made seven different colors, each with their own scent. Here they are if you’re interested:

how to store homemade playdough

  • Yellow- lemon
  • Green- lime
  • Blue- eucalyptus
  • Purple- lavender (I added blue and red to make the purple, and at first it really looked like a gray storm cloud! I was a little disappointed, but after a few hours it magically turned a real purple color!)
  • Red- peppermint
  • Orange- grapefruit
  • Brown – Bergamot

scented playdough

homemade playdough cooked

*Inspired by THIS recipe.