Baking soda play dough is an allergy-friendly alternative to traditional recipes.
No childhood is complete without play dough. I mean really, can you imagine?
Over the last several months, Garrett’s imagination has really been budding, so I knew I had to find a good play dough recipe. He loves it! He insists on calling it cookie dough however (LOL), and despite all the Play Doh toys we have, and how I show him to build things with it, he only has interest in one toy.
Yep, he likes to “squish it”.
Sadly for those of us with food allergy issues, homemade play dough often incorporates gluten and/or wheat. Yuck!
But that’s okay! It’s really easy – and a lot of fun – to make your own, gluten-free play dough. There are lots of fun variations you can use when you make it yourself, such as adding glitter for “sparkle dough”, or unsweetened Kool-Aid packets for the coloring and a nice fruity scent, or even scenting your play dough with essential oils – my own favorite, as it’s a great way to get your kids up close and personal with the medicinal properties essential oils have to offer.
This play dough recipe uses baking soda and cornstarch and is the best homemade playdough ever! In fact, I’d say it’s just as good as the store-bought stuff. Garrett and I sat at the table and rolled, squished, and re-rolled playdough without it sticking to our hands, which made me very happy. I was also quite impressed with how well it came out of some of some of the more detailed molds.
Gluten-Free Baking Soda Play Dough
*This recipe is an adaption of the Arm & Hammer Play Clay recipe
- 2 cups baking soda
- 1 cup cornstarch
- 1 ½ cups water
- 1 tablespoon oil
Mix ingredients together in a sauce pan and heat over medium heat, stirring constantly. If you have older kids, they may get a kick out of doing this because the baking soda makes it fizz for quite a while before it starts to thicken.
And when it starts to thicken, beware! It goes really fast.
Take it off the heat as soon as it’s thick enough to start wanting to stick together. Let cool, paritally covered until it can be handled.
Separate into balls and color. I used wilton icing gel colors left over from my cake decorating days and really loved the results.
You can also use the liquid food coloring available in most grocery stores. It usually comes in a box of four colors – red, blue, green, and yellow . Just remember that red, blue, and yellow are the primary colors from which you can make any color you want.
Red and yellow for instance, make orange, and blue and red make purple. The green play dough pictured here, was made by mixing blue and yellow because I didn’t have green coloring.
Make this = your kids will love you. At least, that’s how it works for me!
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. See my disclosure policy.
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Rosalie Young says
Thanks so much for sharing this recipe. After 31/2 months of using regular play dough in our preschool classroom, I realized that it is not good for my hands. The wheat flour in it is causing a bad case of exzema. I am Celiac and appreciate this recipe and will use it for our classroom from now on!
Elise says
Yay! Glad you found it useful – we love it! 🙂
Larissa says
How long does this keep for in the fridge? Usually the salt acts as a preserver…
Elise says
For a couple of weeks, however, it does collect quite a bit of condensation, so you’ll want to knead it a bit before when you get it out of the fridge. 🙂
Ruth says
What kind of oil, vegetable oil?
Ruth says
What kindof oil?
Elise says
Just vegetable oil, olive oil, etc.
Andrew Flick says
I just 26x the recipe for my child care center. I made lime green colored. I love this recipe!
Elise says
How fun! Glad you liked it.
Melisa says
What kind of oil do you recommend to use?