How to Make Your Own Baby Food

Remember my post about starting your baby on solids? Well, a few of my readers asked me about how I make my own baby food. Homemade food is healthier and more cost effective for your baby. I usually make my baby’s food from fresh vegetables in the summer and frozen vegetables in the winter. I feed baby different colors and textures as much as possible. Today I’m going to show you my two main methods for making baby food to get a smooth puree. Let’s get started with some sweet potato!

The first step is to peel your vegetable or fruit. Even things with thin skins like apples and potatoes, I usually peel because I don’t want little pieces of skin to bother my baby while eating. When baby is a little older (9 mo +) you can introduce foods with small chunks or tiny pieces of skin so that baby transitions to harder textures. Including the skin in your puree will make it even healthier! However, in the beginning it is safest to make a smooth puree.

Next you chop the sweet potato into pieces and boil it in a pot of water. I would not recommend microwaving any food you plan to feed your baby. It alters the chemical makeup and destroys some of the nutrients. Any cooking will cause the food to lose some of the nutritional value, but softly boiling the food is a good option. I usually cook the vegetable longer than I would if I were eating it because I want it to be extra smooth. For instance, I usually boil sweet potatoes half an hour, but if I’m making baby food, I boil them 45 minutes.

Next, strain the sweet potatoes and put them in a bowl for mashing.

Use a metal utensil like a slotted spoon or fork to thoroughly mash the food into a puree. Mash until there are no clumps. Add water as needed until food is the consistency of gravy, pourable but solid. You can also add breast milk to thin your baby food instead of water for even more nutritional value!

Lastly, transfer your baby food into storage containers and you’re done! I freeze my baby food purees in plastic 4 oz containers from old purchased baby food. I have lots of these because I didn’t make my own food with my first child. It is not recommended to freeze food in glass jars because tiny shards of glass can get into the food during the freezing/thawing process. This can cause complications with your baby and is an unseen threat.

That was the simple way to make baby food that anyone can do without any special tools. But what do you do with foods that you don’t cook? Not everything can be brought to a smooth consistency and mashed. Well, I also can show you what I do with vegetables like that! Let’s see how I transformed an almost ripe, but not completely soft, avocado into baby food.

First, scoop the vegetable into your blender. I have a rocket blender for making smoothies and grinding up nuts and things, but it also works phenomenal for making baby food. I use it almost every day because it is so convenient and easy. You don’t need a special tool designed just for making baby food. If you have any kind of blender, you’re set.

                    

Now the avocado is a wonderful, smooth consistency, I just spoon it into my freezable containers and I’m done!

I hope this article demonstrated how easy it is to make your own baby food! Try it and allow baby to benefit from a healthy, homemade meal!