Making your own baby food can be a rewarding experience for you and your baby. Not only can you save money by doing so, you can also control the ingredients, including using only organic fruits and vegetables. This page contains homemade baby food recipes.
Save many dollars and feed your baby healthy food. When my children where babies I did not purchase baby food. Take the same food you prepare for your family, after it is cooked run it thru the blender (you can do as much or little as needed), then freeze in ice cube trays. Once frozen, pop them out, and put them in baggies that are labelled with the type of food and a date. Thaw cubes as needed and you won't waste much when you first start your baby out on foods.
By Jackie Cox
Salt and sugar are never needed when making baby food. Omit these items, preferably at all times, in your baby's everyday meals! Other spices such as cinnamon, garlic powder, pepper etc. may be introduced as early as 7 months with your pediatricians consult
Keep in mind that dairy in baked goods is generally fine for baby (drinking milk before 1 year old is not).
Honey, even in baked goods, is not appropriate for children under 12 months old!
Some pediatricians will say that it is OK to use one whole egg in a baked good recipe for an infant over 8 months old who has no history or nor has shown any propensity to food allergies.
By JodiT from Aurora, CO
Making your own baby food is super easy, not to mention thrifty, and nutritious, too! I found a handheld drink mixer left over from my husband's "powershake" days. I use this to blend whatever I have cooked for the rest of the family at mealtimes. I haven't found anything that can't be blended this way, although some things need a little water added! The handheld mixer is much easier to clean than a food processor or regular blender/mixer, and the preparation time is about 1 minute!
By amylizmc
Since my son started eating solid food, I have saved lots of money by making my own "baby" and "toddler" foods for him, armed with my blender, a few ice cube trays, self sealing freezer wrap, and some reusable freezer containers.
When he was eating "baby" food, I would blend up frozen peas and beans, canned peaches and pears, etc., until smooth, and then freeze them into cubes. I stored the frozen cubes in ziplocks, and would pop one or two out for each meal. I would also do this for mashed ripe bananas, and avocado, or buy a can of pumpkin (not flavored - but plain pumpkin) and cube those as well. When pears and apples were in season, we harvested from a friend's tree and cooked up our own, pureed it well, and made more cubes. Another favorite was lentil soup, pureed right out of the can and then frozen. I would make brown rice or white rice cubes out of leftovers from our dinners, and then mix the frozen rice with the frozen lentil soup for a great meal for him. He loved it!
Now that he is a toddler, I am always looking for quick meals for his lunch at daycare without purchasing the processed stuff. His current favorite is Pasta Pucks:
Cook the pasta according to directions. While it is cooking, put the jar of sauce and can of beans into the blender and blend until smooth. Add the sauce/bean mix to the cooked pasta and add any additional seasonings you like (I add some grated cheese and oregano). Freeze in muffin cups (with papers) or in silicone muffin pans. You can also freeze in small reusable freezer containers. I use the silicone pans, then pop the "pucks" out and put them in a ziplock. One puck for lunch was good from age 1-2, and now he is eating 2 pucks. Saves lots of time for both me and the babysitter, and he gets a good lunch with lots of added fiber/nutrients from the beans. The cost for about 10-16 meals - about $3.00!
We also make a double batch of waffles on the weekend (the big ones that divide into squares) and freeze the extra squares in press-n-seal paper. When the little guy wants a waffle during the week, I can grab one easily, and don't have to buy the commercial ones. You don't need a big freezer to do this, we just have the one on top of our fridge, and it has worked just great!
What is the best baby food? How can I make it myself?
By Mommy (Guest Post)
09/28/2008
I agree with all the other posts but I would add that after having 4 children in under 3 years I learned to make a bag of split peas in the crock pot and freeze in small containers. I also froze large amounts of cooked/mashed squash, potatoes, asparagas, beans etc in small containers. This way they could eat what we were having for dinner (small blener) but when were were gone the sitter could easily feed them by grabbing something from the freezer. Best of luck!
Tips and recipes for making your own baby food. Post your ideas.
Like ThriftyFun on Facebook
