Preparing meals for your baby is the best way to arouse his curiosity by offering new textures, other colors and a multitude of flavors. To help you in the big step of your child’s food diversification, here are some recipes. And for parents in a hurry, advice on making the right choices.

From 6 months, breast or infant milk consumed exclusively is no longer sufficient to cover the nutritional needs of the baby. It is therefore important to diversify the child’s diet.

To awaken the child to new flavors, make him discover new textures and new colors, preparing his homemade meals has many advantages:

• Introduce new tastes one by one to teach your baby to identify each new food individually. Small pots are in fact often made of mixed vegetables or mixed fruits.
• Dose precisely the amounts of proteins and lipids to adapt the intake to the needs of your child.
• Control the quality of the ingredients that you offer your child by choosing seasonal vegetables and fruits, to give him the benefit of their vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants, while avoiding preservatives and GMOs.
• Adapt the textures to make them evolve according to your child’s preferences: some babies indeed like thick and compact purees and compotes while others prefer them smooth and fluid.
• Awaken your child’s taste buds endlessly. Give free rein to your desires and your creativity by offering a range of flavors as wide as the fresh fruits and vegetables on supermarket shelves allow.
• Reduce expenses: the small homemade jars are indeed much more economical than the small commercial jars.

In addition, preparing your child’s homemade baby food also means gradually getting them used to your cooking and family meals that you will enjoy sharing afterwards.

Pumpkin-carrot puree

From 6 months – Preparation: 5 min – Cooking: approximately 20 min

Ingredients:

• 500 g of pumpkin
• 3 carrots
• 2 small potatoes
• Oil (ideally: mixture of 4 oils)

1. Peel the vegetables and potatoes and wash them.
2. Cut the potatoes and pumpkin into medium sized pieces and the carrots into smaller pieces.
3. Steam them or cook them in a saucepan in a large volume of water for about 20 minutes. You can also use a pressure cooker.
4. Check the cooking: the blade of a knife should go easily into the potato.
5. Mix more or less finely, according to your child’s tastes. Optionally add a little cooking water to smooth the preparation.
6. Serve lukewarm and add a teaspoon of oil.
7. Store leftovers in the freezer by distributing the puree in ice cube trays, in silicone muffin cups or in individual jars according to the volumes consumed by your baby at each meal.

Cream of mushroom soup with polenta

From 8 months – Preparation: 5 min – Cooking: approximately 20 min

Ingredients:

• 500 g mushrooms from Paris
• 1 small onion
• 2 carrots
• 4c. at. of polenta
• 1 pinch of cumin
• Persil
• 1 C. to s. fresh cow or sheep cheese OR yogurt
• Oil (ideally: mixture of 4 oils)

1. Peel the mushrooms; carrots and onion and cut into medium sized pieces.
2. Steam the vegetables or cook them in a saucepan in a large volume of water for about 15 minutes. You can also use a pressure cooker.
3. During this time, bring 200 ml of water to a boil and pour in the polenta. Let it cook for 5 minutes
4. Check the cooking of the vegetables: the blade of a knife should go easily into the carrot.
5. Mix the vegetables more or less finely with the polenta, cumin, parsley and cream cheese or yogurt, according to your child’s tastes. Optionally add a little cooking water to smooth the preparation.
6. Serve lukewarm and add a teaspoon of oil.
7. Store leftovers in the freezer by distributing the soup in ice cube trays, in silicone muffin cups or in individual jars according to the volumes consumed by your baby at each meal.

Sweet potato parmentier

From 9 months – Preparation: 5 min – Cooking: approximately 20 min

Ingredients:

• 150 g sweet potato
• 1/2 carrot (50g)
• 20 g minced beef
• 1 C. to s. fresh cheese from cow, sheep or goat
• Persil
• Oil (ideally: mixture of 4 oils)

1. Peel the sweet potato and half a carrot, wash them, cut them into medium sized pieces and steam them for 20 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, cook the minced meat with parsley, in a pan or in a second basket of your steamer if it has one. In this case, place it halfway through cooking, ie 10 minutes after the sweet potato and carrot.
3. Check doneness: the blade of a knife should fit easily into the sweet potato.
4. Mix the sweet potato, carrot and cream cheese more or less finely, according to your child’s tastes. Optionally add a little cooking water to smooth the preparation.
5. In a cookie cutter or a small pot, alternate a layer of mash and a layer of meat. Finish with a layer of mash.
6. Serve lukewarm and add a teaspoon of oil.
7. Store leftovers in the freezer by dividing the preparation into silicone muffin cups or individual jars, depending on the volumes your baby consumes at each meal.

Apple-vanilla compote

From 6 months – Preparation: 3 min – Cooking: approximately 15 min

Ingredients:

• 3 apples
• 1/2 tsp. to c. vanilla beans

1. Peel the apples, core them and cut them into medium sized pieces
2. Steam them or cook them in a saucepan in a large volume of water for about 15 minutes. You can also use a pressure cooker.
3. Mix the apples and vanilla beans more or less finely, according to your child’s tastes. Optionally add a little cooking water to smooth the preparation.
4. Serve the compote at room temperature.
5. Store leftovers in the freezer by distributing the compote in ice cube trays, silicone muffin tins or individual jars, depending on the volumes your baby consumes at each meal.

Peach or nectarine mousse

From 6 months – Preparation: 5 min – Cooking: approximately 20 min

Ingredients:

• 1 ripe peach or a nectarine
• 1 plain white cheese
• Optional: cinnamon or orange blossom

1. Peel the peach or nectarine, core it and cut it into medium sized pieces.
2. Steam it or cook it in a saucepan in a large volume of water for about 5 minutes.
3. Mix the fruit with the fromage blanc and possibly add a little cinnamon or orange blossom.
4. Serve at room temperature.

Strawberry banana compote

From 6 months – Preparation: 3 min – Cooking: approximately 20 min

Ingredients:

• 15 strawberries
• 1 banana

1. Peel the banana, hull and wash the strawberries.
2. Cut the strawberries in half and the banana into slices.
3. Cook the fruit over low heat for 20 minutes, in a saucepan with 8 tablespoons of water.
4. Mix more or less finely, according to your child’s tastes.
5. Serve the compote at room temperature.
6. Store any leftovers in the freezer by distributing the compote in ice cube trays.

Safe products

If you can’t make a homemade meal for your child, don’t beat yourself up. Instead, choose store-bought dishes specifically made for children.

In addition to presenting an undeniable time saving and practicality, the jars for babies are subject to French and European regulations which are intended to be very strict and offer total bacteriological safety. A small pot in fact undergoes around 165 checks during the entire process of processing raw materials:

• For nitrates, the authorized limit is 10 times stricter than in common foods.
• For pesticides, the limits are up to 500 times stricter than for common foods.
• To respect the digestive fragility of toddlers, only 53 additives are authorized in infant foods – against 400 for conventional foods.

The small jars that you will find on the market will therefore necessarily have been subject to draconian controls as to the choice of raw materials and the manufacturing processes.

How to choose the best small pots?

Some brands choose exceptional nutritional quality by choosing to make 100% fruit compote, while other brands will add texture agents (starch for example). For purees, some are composed of a very large majority of vegetables and depending on the recipes, starches, meat or fish, while for other references there will be a multitude of colorings, thickeners and additives. . Many contain a large amount of starches for a small amount of vegetables when the ratio should be 50/50. The quality of fats used (and their quantity) also varies from product to product.

You got it: while all baby food jars are safe from a point of view of pesticides, additives and hygiene, not all brands are created equal. So get into the habit of always reading the list of ingredients that always appears on the packaging and be demanding to give the best to your child. If too many ingredients seem unclear, switch to a reference, or even to another brand.

Finally, remember to always taste your baby’s jars with a spoon to make sure the taste is satisfactory. Taste education starts early, so be sure to choose tasty meals.