How to Purée Baby Food
A blender, food mill, food processor, and sometimes even just a fork, work well to purée baby food.
Reading Time: 5 minutes
Create a healthy alternative to store-bought baby purées by learning how to purée baby food and store it. Get a healthy recipe for baby food breakfast.
by Laura Forrest Hopfauf
Many people don’t realize they can produce their own baby food — making it healthier and saving money by doing so. Creating your own baby food doesn’t need to be a difficult or lengthy process. A few tools, fresh food, and a little time are all you need to prepare food that your little one will enjoy, while providing a healthier and more sustainable option for your family.
There are many levels to making your own baby food: doing it all yourself, using half-purchased half-homemade, using all fresh ingredients, or using some fresh ingredients and some canned. Finding a balance that works for you and your family is what matters, as you go on your feeding journey together.
To make your own baby food, there are only three steps: picking ingredients, cooking them if needed, and puréeing that food to the proper consistency.
Cooking Fruits and Vegetables
How to cook your babe’s food varies on your personal preference, but steaming, roasting, sautéing, and poaching are all great options that only require tools that are most likely already in your home today.
For harder fruits and veggies, such as apples, carrots, and sweet potatoes, all that is needed is a steam basket, pot, and lid. To steam, bring about 2 inches of water to a boil with a steamer basket over the water. Once boiling, add your produce, chopped into 1-inch chunks. Cover and cook until the chunks are fork-tender, which ranges anywhere from 8 minutes for fruits like pears and 18 for vegetables like potatoes.
Roasting vegetables in the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit on a sheet pan until they’re fork-tender is also an easy option when preparing baby’s food to be puréed.
Cooking meats, albeit with minimal spices in the beginning, is perfectly acceptable for baby as long as the meat is cooked to the proper temperature to ensure doneness and safety. Chicken, ground beef, turkey, and fish, such as salmon or white fish, are all great tastes for baby to try early on.
For foods like blueberries, strawberries, bananas, and avocados, no cooking is necessary and all that’s needed is a way to purée the food.
How to Purée Baby Food
A blender, food mill, food processor, and sometimes even just a fork, work to properly purée food to feed a baby. Each tool works slightly differently and to varying degrees. Not all methods are necessary to make baby food, but you may find that switching between multiple tools provides different consistencies for your baby.
A blender works well and removes all lumps from fruits, vegetables, and meats, though it may need to be run a few times to get a smooth consistency. A food processor will provide a lot of control over the final thickness of your baby’s food across all food groups. A food mill is great for making extremely smooth and creamy mashed potatoes. And a fork is all that’s needed to mash avocado and banana to the appropriate degree.
When your baby is just starting to eat food, it’s best to purée it into a smooth, thin consistency. Once a baby becomes comfortable eating off a spoon and swallowing with confidence, leaving small chunks no bigger than a pea in the purées can be a good way to get baby accustomed to new textures.
To thin the consistency of a purée, try a little breast milk, formula, homemade juice, or water. How much liquid you add and what you choose to use as a liquid are up to you and what your baby likes.
How to Store Homemade Baby Food
In the beginning, your baby will eat only a couple tablespoons at a time (if that), so preserving food is a must and can make preparation as simple as reheating.
Baby food can be stored in the fridge in an air-tight container for up to three days and can be kept in the freezer for up to three months. To store baby food in the freezer, the simplest way is to freeze purées in ounce-sized servings in an ice cube tray. Once frozen, transfer the puréed cubes to a freezer-safe container.
To thaw your baby food, remove a cube and place in a bowl or container in the fridge overnight. If you’re rewarming in the microwave, always stir the food and check the temperature before giving to baby to avoid hot pockets that could burn.
Homemade Baby Food as an Alternative
When your baby starts eating solid food, the most important thing they can do is try the food. Above all, don’t be too hard on yourself: Baby won’t like everything you make, and that’s okay. Some days, you may be so exhausted that reaching for a can of store-bought baby food is easiest, and that’s okay, too. Baby won’t remember if you cooked every meal, they’ll just remember that you were there to nourish them.
Overall, homemade baby food is an easy and affordable alternative to store-bought products that allows you to determine exactly what your little one gets from flavors to texture to freshness, while giving you the joy of cooking for them just like you do the rest of your family.
Baby’s Breakfast Medley
- Handful of blueberries
- 1/2 an apple
- 1/4 sweet potato
- Spinach
Cut apple and sweet potato into chunks, then add to spinach and steam until soft. Put everything into a blender or food processor and purée to desired consistency. Add baby cereal or juice as needed.
Laura Forrest Hopfauf lives in West Virginia with her husband and daughters. She spent a year living out of a pickup truck driving across North America, hiked across a Caribbean Island, and backpacked through Europe and North Africa. She’s a columnist for Hagerstown Magazine and her work has been featured in many other publications.
Originally published in the May/June 2025 issue of Countryside and Small Stock Journal and regularly vetted for accuracy.
