Homemade Spinach Baby Food Recipe

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Homemade Spinach Baby Food Recipe is significantly healthier and cheaper than store-bought.  You just need to do some quick and easy prep to make a large quantity all at once. Freeze the baby food in ice-cube trays.  Thaw as needed and baby has super healthy food ready whenever he or she needs it.

I have been a baby FOOD making machine here lately! It is hard to believe that my nephew Z will be nine months old soon!! He is growing up too quickly!! It seems like just yesterday that I was introducing y’all to him in my post for Slow Cooker Mushroom Ranch Chicken Recipe. He is a very good eater, hence I have been very busy making baby food for him!! I told y’all in my first post about making baby food, Homemade Baby Food: Bananas & Sweet Potato, that I made a promise to my sister when she was pregnant with Z that I would make homemade organic baby food for him. And I am proud to say, that I have been keeping that promise. Recently, when they were visiting (they live three hours away) we had a marathon baby food making session. I finally remembered to take pictures (although you will have to forgive me, they aren’t my best pictures) and now I am going to start a series for you on making baby food.

Real quick, before we get started on the baby food, I have a question for you…Do you have Audible? It’s an Amazon company and I love and trust Amazon! With Audible, you can download audiobooks to your smartphone or tablet. Audible has a great offer right now to download a free audiobook! And with all the holiday travel this week with the 4th of July and throughout this summer, you will want to download a free audiobook to help pass the time on a long car ride or in the dreaded airport with all those travel delays. Also great if you are flying for the flight itself!! It’ll make the time fly by 🙂 He he, pun intended 🙂

Ok, there are a few things that you are going to need to get started! Here is what your setup will look like:

You will need a large pot. This is 11-piece set that mine came in and I love it!!

We have had for a long time (I can’t remember exactly but probably 7-8 years) and it still works great and looks brand new! They aren’t that pricey but are excellent quality!!

You will also need a good steamer basket for steaming the spinach (or other fruit or veggie) that you are making into baby food. I love this that I purchased when I first started making baby food for Z.

It is flexible, so it will fit just about any pot and the little handles are helpful for transferring the steamed food to the food processor. Note: you will need a pair of tongs as pictured to do the transfer. Don’t try to grab the handles of the steamer basket!! Although the silicone doesn’t get hot itself, the steam is HOT!! Some of the recipes that I looked at just called for you to boil the fruits or veggies. But I read that boiling leaches a lot of the vitamins and minerals out of the fruits and vegetables. I wanted to keep as much of the vitamins and minerals IN the baby food for my Z man. I mean isn’t that the point to make this baby food as healthful as possible? Duh!

You will also need the following:
Food Processor ice cube trays Vacuum Sealer Portion Pouch Bags

Let’s get started with the spinach! I learned how to make all of the baby food by finding recipes on Pinterest! I have a board called Z Bites, where I have collected my favorites. I learned how to make the spinach from a post by Smitten Kitchen. We bought a couple of these HUGE tubs of organic spinach at Sam’s Club for about $4 a piece!! That is such a deal 🙂 No need to wash, because the spinach is already triple washed…another bonus!

Put about an inch or so of water in your large stock pot. Add the steamer basket to the pot, making sure that there is no water visible in the basket.  If there is water visible, you’ve got too much water so pour a little out. Bring the water to a boil over high heat.

Once the water is rapidly boiling, fill the steamer basket with spinach and cover the pot. It will wilt down significant very quickly!  This picture was taken after just a minute or so of steaming (just long enough for me to grab my camera and shoot a pic). Steam the spinach for 2-3 minutes or until the spinach is wilted down and a dark green color.

Remove the cooked spinach and transfer to the food processor. You can accomplish this by either using the tongs to pick up the actual spinach or to pick up the whole steamer basket and dump the spinach into the food processor.

Process the cooked spinach until it creates a puree, adding some of the cooking water if necessary to thin it out.

Use a spoon to fill up the ice cube trays with the spinach puree.  You will notice that the spinach cooks down significantly!! That one pound tub of spinach that you saw at the beginning of this post  only made ONE tray of spinach baby food. So this is super concentrated stuff we are talking about here 🙂

Place your trays of baby food in the freezer and freeze until solid. I usually wait about 24 hours or so just to make sure that they are good and solid.

Once frozen, pop the little cubes of spinach baby food out of the trays and place into either vacuum sealer pouches or freezer storage bags. Then you can either use a vacuum sealer to vacuum and seal the pouches or try to squeeze out as much air as possible out the freezer storage bags.

Here is the Food Saver System that I have and highly recommend:

You want to keep as much air out as possible to prevent frost bite. Place back in the freezer until needed. Once frozen, the baby food can be stored in the freezer for up to 3 months. Then all that is needed is a quick thaw and baby can eat.

This is all the baby food that we made on that marathon baby food making afternoon! It was really just a few hours of work to get all of this healthy baby food for the lil Z man!! I will continue this series of posts with the rest of the homemade baby food recipes that you see pictured here. Just stay tuned…

Here is a printable version of the Homemade Spinach Baby Food Recipe:

Homemade Spinach Baby Food Recipe

 

Save Print

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

3 mins

Total time

13 mins

 

Author: Becky's Best Bites

Serves: 16

Ingredients

• 16 oz. organic baby spinach leaves

Instructions

1. Put about an inch or so of water in your large stock pot. Add a steamer basket to the pot, making sure that there is no water visible in the basket.
2. Bring the water to a boil over high heat.
3. Once the water is rapidly boiling, fill the steamer basket with spinach and cover the pot.
4. Steam the spinach for 2-3 minutes or until the spinach is wilted down and a dark green color.
5. Remove the cooked spinach and transfer to the food processor.
6. Process the cooked spinach until it creates a puree, adding some of the cooking water if necessary to thin it out.
7. Use a spoon to fill up the ice cube trays with the spinach puree.
8. Place trays of baby food in the freezer and freeze until solid, usually over night or up to 24 hours.
9. Once frozen, pop the cubes of spinach baby food out of the trays and place into either vacuum sealer pouches or freezer storage bags.
10. Either vacuum seal the pouches or try to squeeze out as much air as possible out the freezer storage bags.
11. Place back in the freezer until needed.
12. Thaw as needed. Each cube is 1 ounce of baby food.

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