// ]]>
Homemade baby food seems pretty easy. Just blend up some soft fruits and veggies, and you are good to go! However, I was too intimidated to make homemade baby cereal for my first daughter, but I decided to take a stab at it the second time around.
Come to find out, it’s super easy. I also love that it is so frugal and healthy since you are able to use whole grains and control what goes into it.
(I adapted much of my info from wholesomebabyfood.com )
I made brown rice and oatmeal for Jane.
All you need is:
- brown rice
- old fashioned rolled oats (not the quick cooking kind!)
- water
Grind the rice or oatmeal in the blender to make a fine powder. This will take a few minutes depending on how good your blender is. The rice is a little more difficult to get finely ground.
When you are finished, you should have rice powder and oatmeal powder.
This step is not totally necessary, but you can sift the powder to make it even finer. I did this with the rice powder because my blender isn’t great and there were still some chunks in it. I found the cereal came out much smoother in the end. But, you could skip this step if you want.
Most recipes I found called for 1/4 cup powder and 1 cup water, but I like to double it so that I have lots of extras that I can freeze.
Boil 2 cups water and then add 1/2 cup of the powder. Whisk frequently for 10 minutes. Then, you are done!
You can save the extra powder for later.
When it’s done cooking, it should be a fairly smooth cereal. You can add breast milk, formula and/or pureed fruit. If you feel the cereal is still a bit too thick, you could blend it once it’s done cooking.
Stick a few servings in the fridge and put the rest in an ice cube tray to freeze. You could freeze the cereal by itself or mix it with a fruit and freeze. This is my first time freezing the plain cereal, so I will have to report back to you if the texture was weird after thawing it.
The banana/rice mixture turned out great once thawed. Once your ice cubes of cereal are frozen, pop the cubes in bags. One cube is one ounce.
Watch your baby enjoy!
Check out my other homemade recipes!
*update! I found that the cereal is fine after thawing, but a tad on the “gummy” side. as long as you mix it with a bit of water after thawing, it’s fine. however, after experimenting, my best recommendation is to mix the cereal with a fruit and then freeze. This produces best results after thawing!
* you can store the leftover oatmeal and rice powder in a dry, cool location. leftover prepared cereal needs to be stored in the refrigerator for up to 72 hours. Check out this website for more info about storage.
** If you are concerned about the fact that homemade baby cereal is not iron fortified, check out this great article!
*This post contains affiliate links
