Homemade baby food purées (basic)

Blueberry applesauce.

Homemade baby food is a fun and pretty simple way to expose your baby or babies to all kinds of new foods, textures, colors, and smells.

Posts may contain affiliate links. If you purchase an item from these links, a small percentage goes to support the work of this blog. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Since a significant portion of my kitchen time lately has been spent making baby food, I figured it deserved a post here. Having twins, baby food gets pretty expensive!

I'm surprised when I see people in my mom's groups, or mom friends of mine, talking about how their babies don't like purées or cereals or other typical baby foods. Our twins love these things (and also they love yogurt). After we tried a bunch of store bought jarred baby foods, I decided to try to make some myself. 

So far, the only thing they haven't liked is chicken (so much gagging) and one does not care for beets. Some food I still buy jarred (like peaches and pears as they are expensive to buy this time of year and not very sweet), but making purées is pretty easy and definitely money saving.

Applesauce.

So far I have made applesauce, blueberry applesauce, green beans, peas, beets, sweet potatoes, carrots, winter squash (butternut, kabocha, etc.), and chicken to freeze. I will also make the occasional fresh banana purée and another favorite - banana & avocado purée. I've found that steaming, boiling, and baking all work great. 

For example, when I'm going to have the oven on anyways, I'll throw in a bunch of sweet potatoes or a butternut squash. Then I just let them cool, remove the skin, and purée in our regular food processor. 

For things like blueberries, I'll cook them on the stove until they begin to break down, then run through the food processor, and then I'll put them through a fine mesh sieve to remove skin or seeds. 

Then I divide the food into an ice cube tray (one cube makes a 1 oz. serving) or into these baby food freezer containers (2 oz. servings). 

For the ice cube tray, I put it in the freezer and when the food is frozen, I pop all the cubes into a labeled freezer bag. Then you can thaw out as many cubes as you want. I will pull out their food for the next day and place it in a container in the refrigerator to thaw. Then it's ready to go as is, or warm up if desired.

Finished frozen ice cubes of various baby foods.

I've been trying to make a variety of colors and flavors them them to try. Sometimes I'll thaw two things together (like beets + apples). I may try more mixed flavors in the future now that they have tried a lot of different fruits and vegetables. 

 They gobbled up all the butternut squash.

I know making purées for babies probably isn't the most exciting thing, but I've been having fun with it. I am hoping to try some other foods soon - perhaps some other types of berries or kiwi. 

I also want to start trying more spices in their food. So far, we've only done nutmeg. I grated a tiny bit onto their oatmeal with some banana purée. We are really hoping our kids will be open and adventurous eaters like us!

Check out these other baby food posts: 

Homemade Baby Foods (Advanced) Part 1

Homemade Baby Foods (Advanced) Part 2