Easy large print word search: in the kitchen

The rules

• Six words are listed under the grid. Each one is hidden in the grid in a straight line.
• A word reads from left to right or from top to bottom. No word is written backwards and none runs diagonally.
• Two words may cross and share a letter. Each listed word is in the grid exactly once.
• On screen, tap the first letter of a word and then its last letter. On paper, draw a loop round the word and cross it off the list.

How to do a word search if you have not done one before

Read the six words first and say them to yourself, so that you know what you are looking for. Then choose one, and look at its first letter only. Run a finger along the top row of the grid from left to right, then the next row, and stop each time you meet that letter.

At each stop there are only two things to check on this page: the letters that follow to the right, and the letters that follow underneath. If the second letter of your word is not in either place, move on. If it is, read on along that line and see whether the rest of the word is there.

Because the grid is only eight letters across, a six-letter word such as KETTLE has very few places to fit: across, it must start in one of the first three columns. Longer words are therefore the quickest to find, and it pays to do them first. The four-letter words are easier to spot once the long ones are looped.

When five words are done and the last will not show itself, go through the grid one column at a time from top to bottom instead of row by row. A word written downwards is easy to pass over when the eye is used to reading across.

Tips for printing and playing

• Print this page first if you are choosing for someone whose sight is poor: with eight letters across the sheet, each letter is as large as this site prints.
• A sheet of card or a ruler laid under the row you are reading keeps your place and hides the rows below.
• A highlighter pen is kinder to the grid than a biro loop, because the letters stay readable where two words cross.
• The theme is printed above the grid. The lists take turns from one puzzle to the next: the kitchen itself, baking, fruit, and herbs and spices.
• On a tablet, Reveal one highlights a word that has not been found yet, and found words stay marked if you close the page and come back.

How these puzzles are made and checked

A separate scan reads the finished grid from every cell in all eight directions. Every listed word must be found exactly once, at the stored position, and the grid must not spell a word from our deny list outside the listed words.

The puzzle of the day is chosen by the date on your device: puzzle 1 was the puzzle for 1 January 2026, and the number goes up by one each day. 366 puzzles, so the same puzzle comes round again after 366 days. Every number stays open in the archive control above the grid. More detail is on the page how the puzzles are made, checked and printed.