Are you wanting to learn how to make your own baby food? Homemade spinach baby food is incredibly nutritious and easy to make!
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Spinach Baby Food
When it comes to our children, we as moms want to give them the best! We want them to be healthy and we want them to have the best start at life possible!
A great way to give your baby the best optimal start is to make your own baby food! Unfortunately store bought baby food can be laden with chemicals and other nasty ingredients.
Making your own baby food fresh is a great way to not only avoid these nasty ingredients, but to give your baby the freshest, most nutritious food possible!
When all four of my children were babies I made my own baby food for them. If you have never done it before, then don’t worry, it’s very easy! I’ll walk you step by step through the entire process:)
And I know it sounds time consuming, but it’s really not. You can make up a whole months worth of baby food in just a few hours!
Spinach Baby Food Homemade
Spinach is a super green, making it super nutritious for you little one!
It contains vitamin A, Vitamin C, Manganese, Zinc, Selenium, Antioxidants and so much more!
There is definitely a reason that Popeye ate spinach;)
How to Make Spinach Baby Food
So let’s get started and go make some spinach baby food!
The only ingredients that you will need for this recipe are spinach, and a little filtered or reverse osmosis water.
When choosing spinach, you want to be sure that the leaves are not wilted or slimy. You want them to be crisp, and the leaves should be young and tender.
I also recommend buying organic spinach.
You want to prepare the greens as soon as possible after buying them. Greens have a very short shelf life and will go bad quickly.
The first step is to wash your spinach leaves. Wash each leaf very well as fresh spinach tends to be sandy. You don’t want any sand hiding in any crinkly leaves.
How to Steam Spinach for Baby Food
The easiest and most nutritious way to cook spinach is to steam it.
Steaming will help to preserve most of the nutrients, making it the best option.
Simply add water to the bottom of the steamer, put the steamer basket in place, and add your washed spinach to the basket. Place the lid on and turn on the burner. Once steam begins to build up you want to steam the spinach for about 3-5 minutes.
How to Puree Spinach for Baby Food
To puree the spinach I highly recommend purchasing a Vitamix Blender to make your baby food with. It is one of the best blenders and will blend baby food to a super smooth consistency to insure that you do not end up with spinach strings in the baby food that baby can gag on.
This is the only blender that I will use when pureeing not only baby food, but other recipes such as Sweet Potato Pie or Apple Butter as well! It is the best! And it lasts FOREVER! I have had my Vitamix for over a decade and it’s still going strong and purees foods just as good as the day I got it! Definitely worth investing in!
Baby Food Spinach Puree
So add the spinach to the blender.
I usually fill mine about 1/3 full at a time and blend in batches to help speed the process up. You need to also add a little water at this time.
If you want to add back in some of the nutrients that were lost during steaming you can use the water that you used to steam the spinach. Just be sure that you use a good quality filtered or RO water when you steam them.
Start with a few tablespoons of water, as you can always add more. If the spinach get too thick it will not blend well. So keep stopping and scraping down the sides of the blender as needed and adding water until all the spinach is smooth and blends well.
You want it to be somewhat thick and not runny, so don’t add too much water. You basically only want to add as much water as is needed to help the blender out. Otherwise the spinach will just stick to the sides and won’t fall down to the blades.
Once all the spinach is blended to a super smooth consistency you have baby food! Yep, it’s that easy!
How to Store Homemade Baby Food
But wait, we’re not done yet!
What are you supposed to do with this large batch of spinach baby food? I mean, as good as spinach is for you, your baby isn’t going to eat the whole batch at once;)
Like I mentioned above you can make a LOT of baby food in a short amount of time. The key is to freeze the spinach puree that you won’t be using in the next couple of days for later.
However, you don’t want to freeze it all together. You want to be able to freeze it in serving sizes so that you can easily thaw out and use a small amount at a time. This way you can have baby food for a month or more!
How to Freeze Baby Food
To freeze baby food efficiently you really need to get these baby food cube trays. They’re kind of like ice cube trays that have lids.
Simply scoop the pureed spinach into the trays, place the lid on, and put it in the freezer. Once they are completely frozen you can pop them out and store them in freezer bags that are labeled with the date made.
Now you have a large supply of ready made, single serving, spinach baby food cubes! How easy is that?!
One important thing to remember about freezing spinach cubes is that this only can be done if you are making your spinach puree from fresh spinach. If you are using frozen spinach to make your baby food it cannot be frozen again after cooking.
So it really is best if batch cooking to buy fresh spinach.
How to Thaw Frozen Baby Food
When it comes time to use your frozen spinach cubes you need to be sure that they are thawed in advance.
There are a couple of different ways to thaw out spinach baby food.
The easiest is to put it in a bowl with a lid the night before and let it thaw in the fridge. That way the next day it will be soft and ready to use.
However, I know from experience, that this isn’t always an option! There were many times that I forgot to lay my baby food out and had to do it just before serving it.
I really don’t recommend thawing baby food in the microwave. Not only does it leave hot spots in the baby food that can burn your baby, but it also is bad for the baby food! You can read here about the dangers of microwaves and why I don’t have one.
So, the best way to thaw frozen baby food cubes quickly is to fill a bowl that is a little larger than the bowl holding the baby food with hot water. Sit the bowl with the cubes in the hot water. The heat will be enough to cause the cubes to melt.
You might have to change the water a few times and add fresh hot water as it gets cold. Also occasionally turn the cube and break it up as it gets softer to help speed up thawing.
I know this might seem like a pain, but it’s the best way to thaw the cubes so that they don’t get too hot for baby and the best way to preserve the nutrients in the food that you worked hard to make!
Be sure to test the thawed spinach to be sure that they are not too hot before feeding it to your baby.
Making Spinach Baby Food
And that’s how you make homemade spinach baby food!
Now the only thing left to do is to serve it to your little one:) I hope they enjoy it as much as you enjoy giving your baby the healthiest food possible!
For additional baby food recipes be sure to read:
How to make Green Bean Baby Food
How to Make Sweet Potato Baby Food
How to Make Butternut Squash Baby Food
Spinach Baby Food Recipe
Spinach Baby Food
Make your own nutrient dense spinach baby food!
Ingredients
- Organic Spinach (washed well)
- Filtered or RO Water
Instructions
To steam spinach imply add water to the bottom of the steamer, put the steamer basket in place, and add your washed spinach to the basket. Place the lid on and turn on the burner. Once steam begins to build up you want to steam the spinach for about 3-5 minutes.
Next add the spinach to the blender.
I usually fill mine about 1/3 full at a time and blend in batches to help speed the process up. You need to also add a little water at this time.
If you want to add back in some of the nutrients that were lost during steaming you can use the water that you used to steam the spinach. Just be sure that you use a good quality filtered or RO water when you steam them.
Start with a few tablespoons of water, as you can always add more. If the spinach get too thick it will not blend well. So keep stopping and scraping down the sides of the blender as needed and adding water until all the spinach is smooth and blends well.
You want it to be somewhat thick and not runny, so don't add too much water. You basically only want to add as much water as is needed to help the blender out. Otherwise the spinach will just stick to the sides and won't fall down to the blades.
Once all the spinach is blended to a super smooth consistency you have baby food! Yep, it's that easy!
