Homemade Baby Food In The Instant Pot
You’re cruising home from the latest pediatrician appointment, grinning ear to ear because you got the green light to start your baby with their first bites of baby food. You imagine them sitting in their high chair with a huge sweet potato smeared grin on their face.
So you hit your local grocery store and decide to buy some baby food. You are overwhelmed with how many different options there are. What is the difference between a stage 1 and stage 3 puree? Are these preservatives in the baby food ok? What is citric acid? Does it seem weird that this banana baby food doesn’t expire for nearly three years from now? I can’t even keep the banana on my kitchen counter from going brown for more than a day.
You talk yourself into it, ok, it can’t be that expensive. So you grab as many jars as you can like a squirrel gathering nuts, and check-out with a price tag upwards of $50. Hmm, That seems expensive.
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Should I Make My Own Baby Food?
On your way home you start adding up the cost for the next 6 months, and wonder, “Should I just make my own baby food?!” GASP… You’re already stretched out thin in the time department and there is no way you will ever have enough time to make a ton of baby food to feed your growing baby. Plus you’re a terrible cook and have no idea how to make baby food.
What if I told you that baby food can be cooked in as little as five minutes? Also, it can be cooked in the same place at the same time in one pot (which means less dishes). Thanks to your pressure cooker, preparing and cooking baby food has never been easier.
Instant Baby Food
The Instant pot allows you to easily cook ALL different varieties and mixtures of the baby food all at once. Yep, all the baby food is made in one pot, in way less time, saving you on dishes and your sanity too.
Making your own baby food is also going to save you lotssssss of money. Using the method below I made approximately 40 servings for less than $20 in under an hour.
If you know how to plug in your Instant Pot, vaguely know how to use it, and can do some rough cutting and dicing you will soon become an expert baby food maker.
Preparing Baby Food In Instant Pot
Here we are, ready to make your first baby foods. Step 1- plug in your Instant pot! Congrats, we are almost done. We are setting our Instant pot up to act as a giant steamer.
Steaming the food helps aid in an easier digestion for your babies developing tummy. It is recommended that you cook/steam all fruits and vegetables for babies under 8 months old (with the exception of bananas, and avocados)
Wash and peel all of the vegetables and then roughly dice them. Nothing too fancy with the knife skills because it will all be blended later.
After the vegetables have been cut and diced, place them right into ramekins that you already have around the house. If you don’t have ramekins consider small glass pyrex containers. Anything that is safe for the oven will also be safe for your instant pot. If you don’t have any of those, you can also make separators using tin foil.
Also, if you are planning on making lots of food you will want to make sure that you have a steamer basket. I just used this one that I already had around the house and it worked out great. They also make specific pressure cooker steamer baskets which are nice because they have the longer handle. Either will work great.
The following fruits and vegetables work well at a 5 minute cook time:
- beets, apples, broccoli, zucchini, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, carrots, cauliflower, green beans, pear, peas.
The food is loaded into ramekins, and the steamer basket goes directly on top.
The fruits and vegetables are cooked on a manual high pressure for 5 minutes. Once cook time is complete, perform a natural release for 5 minutes, and. then quick release the remaining pressure.
Blending and Pureeing Baby Food
Once the time is up, its time to puree the fruits and veggies to their desired consitency. You have a few options when it comes to blending. Use a regular blender, food processor, or hand held immersion blender to blend the baby food to desired constancy. Many of the fruits and vegetables will be so soft that you can actually place them into a bowl and use a hand held potato masher to puree them up.
If your baby has already mastered single blends and you are ready to move onto more “advanced” blends, you can add a banana or avocado to the steamed food for mixing
No need for one of the fancy “Baby Food Makers” that are on the market. In fact, the Vitamix, Magic Bullet and Ninja kitchen system are all great tools for blending/pureeing baby food and can be used way beyond baby purees.
Storing Baby Food
Place a few fresh servings in small containers, like these and place them right in the fridge. Homemade baby food will stay good in the fridge for 2-3 days.
Next, place the rest of the purees and mixes in ice cube trays and let freeze overnight. Use a Tablespoon to help place into the ice-cube containers. This will also help you know how many servings are in one cube.
Once the baby food is frozen, remove them from the ice-cube tray and place the baby food cubes into a freezer safe bag. Make sure to label the bag with the date, and contents.
Baby food will stay good in the freezer for up to 3 months. Don’t be alarmed if the baby food cubes develop ice crystals on them, this does NOT mean that they are freezer burned, it just has extra water in it.
Allergies And Baby Food
From personal experience, I highly advise you to wait to introduce a new food after three days, for allergy purposes.
Both my children have food allergies, and their symptoms did NOT present themselves until several exposures. Only introducing one new food at a time will help identify which food is causing issues.
Baby Food Blends
Once you know what your baby likes, run with it! Remember that babies need to try something at least 10 times before they can make up their mind. So if they keep pushing away the peas, just try again a different day.
Any easy way to come up with blends is to check out the baby food aisle at the grocery store. Some of my son’s favorite blends are:
- Sweet Potato + Banana
- Pears + Peas + Broccoli
- Zuchinni + Peas + Pears
- Carrots + Apples
- Sweet Potatoes + Mango + Carrots
- Green Beans + Pear
- Zuchinni + Apples + Peas
Homemade Baby Food In The Instant Pot
Ingredients
- Serving Size suggestions
- 3 Carrots, chopped
- 1 Zucchini, skins removed and chopped
- 3 Apples, cored and Skins removed
- 1 Beet, washed, peeled and chopped
- 1 Head of Broccoli, chopped
- 1 Head of Cauliflower, chopped
- 2 Pears, skinned and chopped
Instructions
- Place the trivet inside the Instant Pot
- Place 1.5 cups of water on the bottom of the instant pot
- Use up to four ramekins and place your fruits and vegetables on top of the trivet
- Add a steamer basket on top of the ramekins for more vegetables (these work great for blends).
- Lock lid by placing valve closed
- Set Manual High pressure and select 5 minutes
- Once 5 minutes is up, perform a natural release for 5 minutes and then open valve to let remaining steam out
- Very carefully, remove the fruits and veggies from Instant pot and use your blender to puree to desired consistency.
- Add more water/breastmilk/formula to make puree thin and less to make it thicker
This is a cool idea! We didn’t really do the baby food thing much with our second baby, we just kind of mushed up what we were all eating anyway. 😛 but this is a cool idea! Seems pretty easy!
This looks so easy! Gotta love the InstaPot! Side note- I didn’t know you could put ramekins in there! Mind. Blown.
This is so helpful! I made almost all of our baby food for our first and only about 1/3 for our second because our baby food maker broke and it was just so convenient to buy it – and he switched to finger foods really quickly! I’m saving this if we ever have another!
I love reading about homemade baby food recipes. We never used them because we skipped purees, but I think it is fascinating how parents will make all of these homemade recipes. What an awesome mama!
This is WAY easier to cook it all at once in the Instant Pot, what a great idea! Great tip to wait a few days in-between introducing new foods to help identify food allergies too, thanks for sharing your own experience here. Ü
Wow, what great information! I had no idea you could put ramekins in the instapot, that makes things so simple! Thank you for sharing and kudos to you for doing this for your kids!!
This worked out great and was so much easier to prepare.
What a great way to make baby food at home! Definitely going to keep this in mind for the next one!
I never thought about using my instant pot to make baby food! I will definitely be trying this out
Do you know if this recipe works with meats as well? Thanks in advance!
Hi Anita, meat can absolutely be cooked in an Instant Pot, however, it needs to be cooked typically for a longer cooking period so I wouldn’t advice it being cooked alongside the steamed vegtables.
Great info and fun to read! How do you think I could incorporate beans and grains to this time frame?
I have cooked the beans (canned not dry) in it’s own ramekin. Just make sure you place it on the bottom (if using a steamer basket) as you don’t want the beans to over power your other fruits and veggies. Also, I often times add a few tablespoons of organic oatmeal into whatever fruit or veggie I am offering for some extra grains. Enjoy!
Can you explain what to do with the steamer basket in the instant pot? I’m confused
Hi Tess! The steamer basket allows you to add another tier to your cooking. You can place the ramekins on top of the trivet, and then add another layer (more veggies or fruit) on top of that using the steamer basket. Hope this helps!
Do I have to do a steamer basket if I am just doing one level?
If you are just using one level you don’t need to use your steamer basket!
Oh my goodness. I just got SO much baby food made and it was a breeze. Thank you so much!!! What a load off!
Yay! You are so welcome, hope the little one enjoys it!
Have you ever made beans food with bananas, berries or spinach in it? I have never made baby food before but my son likes these foods so I want to be able to make them and not buy them.
Most fruits don’t need to be cooked as they are already soft enough and baby is old enough. Cooking helps to break down some of the proteins so it’s easier to digest. I would say after you’ve cooked the veggies I would just mash in the banana or berries. The Spinach can be cooked but it will wilt apart if you do it for the full 5 minutes in the IP. I would cook it ahead of time and then just add into any of the blends where it makes sense. Enjoy!
Thank you SO much for this! This made it so much simpler saving time and decreased all the dishwashing lol. I had been feeling so guilty feeding my baby the premade foods as I’m a full time nursing student and barely make myself food these days. Now we don’t have to sacrifice time or nutrition! Life saver.
You are so welcome! I love that it cuts the dish and prep time in half!
I’ve been having anxiety the past few weeks about starting my LO on solids. After reading this, I’m so excited to start. Thank you very much.
So happy to hear! Hope you and the little both enjoy it.
For the baby food you freeze…do you just take out a serving & let it thaw in the fridge or heat it up?
Hi Cat! Yes, I just take it out 24 hours in advance and put it in the fridge. OR you can defrost it in the microwave or on the stove, warm it up and serve.
Hi there, 2 things!
If using ramekins, do you need a steamer basket and if so you say the “steamer basket is placed directly on top”? Do you mean the steamer basket is placed on top of the trivet, and the ramekins sit inside the steamer basket?
Also if using frozen peas, can you still put the pureed peas into ice cube trays to freeze?
The steamer basket is used if you want to add an additional layer to steam even more veggies! On top of the trivet you would place the ramekins, and then add the steamer basket so it sits on top of the ramekins. And yes you can re-freeze peas that have been cooked! Hope your little enjoys!
I’ve been following this for my high allergy risk baby (he has a big bro with 10 allergies) and it’s been great. But I have a question: I’ve been using open mason jars instead of ramekins and for some reason feels like I need to triple cook time (12 minutes) or veggies like cubed sweet potatoes remain quite crisp/raw. What am I doing wrong? Do the mason jars not conduct heat as well? It seems way over the top even based on Instant Pot cooking time guidelines. I know it’s working in general because I can cook chicken and other foods no problem. Thanks for any advice!
I have never tried using mason jars but I imagine its impacting the cooking time. If you bought the steamer basket try placing the sweet potatoes in there and the other veggies in the mason jar and see if that helps!
It is best to add the least amount of water needed when pureeing so that you can add breastmilk or formula or water when serving as needed.
Yes, I would add the least amount of water to start! You can always add more but you can’t add less 🙂
Hi Christine, can I add formula when pureeing and then freeze it afterward? Can the puree be heated in the microwave? Thanks.
Although you can freeze formula, I would not when freezing with the pureed food. I would add less water and then add the formula when you heat it up if you wanted to add! And I usually like to pop the frozen purees in the fridge for 24 hours, and then I place in the microwave to make sure it’s totally defrosted.
Love the idea of using the instapot for making baby food. I’m a new mom and about to start solids, so naturally a gazillion questions goes through your mind, which food first, when do you add meat to diet, can you use regular oatmeal or is there a special baby oatmeal etc. One of my questions is if I have frozen breast milk when do I add it to thin the purée? And once I add can I refreeze the thinned purée? Thank you for taking the time to post this recipe!!!
Sorry for the delayed response! After the puree has thawed you can add breastmilk. Once the puree has been thawed you do not want to refreeze the puree again. Hope that helps!