One Hour for One Month's Worth of Homemade Baby Food- 40+ Stage 1 Recipes! (2024)

Making homemade baby food does not have to be another chore! It can actually be really enjoyable and I personally love making it. I have never bought jarred food for my first son Miles that is 2 and ½ and am now making it for my second son Ellis who is 7 months old. I say that ONLY to tell you that I have gone through a lot of different ways of making it, until I figured out what I think is the best way to go!

Just like cooking for your family, planning is key. You don’t want it to be something you have to do all the time or worry about having enough. Does this happen sometimes? Of course! We are human. But I always feel best after I follow this strategy, and I don’t have to worry if I’ll have enough food or variety for the month. If you have 1 hour, you can make one month worth of food with 40+ different recipes! This meal plan is for stage 1 of baby food, 6-8 months old.

UPDATED on 9/20/19! New pictures and made a few changes to the steps, adding in options for an instant pot that made this even faster!

Related Post: If you want to start with easy, one and done recipes: Baby Food Recipes for your 6 Month Old

Related: All posts on baby food, If your baby is 8-10 months old, make sure to check out the stage 2 plan! For 10-12 months old (or baby led weaning!), some easy and healthy baby finger foods.

This article is not to convince anyone to make your own homemade baby food, but to give you a great strategy if you have decided this is the route you want to go! There is nothing wrong with buying baby food. Personally this is something I wanted to do for several reasons 1) saves money 2) I know exactly what is in the food 3) I don’t have to lock into buying premixed jars and could play around with different baby food recipes.

Per American Academy of Pediatrics, babies still get the majority of their nutrition from breast milk or formula until 1 year of age (24-32 ounces daily). Most babies start eating solids at 6 months, but your doctor may tell you that your baby is ready at 4 months. I’ve never started at 4 months, and there is new evidence that there aren’t nutritional benefits to starting early. But again- this is one of those decisions you can make with your pediatrician and personal research.

When you first start feeding your baby solids, give him one new food at a time for 3 days before starting the next. This ensures that you will catch any allergic reaction they may have. Once you know that your child can tolerate a food, introduce another single ingredient and repeat the process. You can mix in previously tolerated food. For example, if you start with sweet potatoes first for 3 days and you try apple next- you can mix in the sweet potato because you already have fed your baby sweet potato. You wait 3 days after introducing apple to feed them a new food, and so forth.

Okay, back to cooking!

I’m going to be upfront- this will cause lots of dishes. 🙁 That is my least favorite chore to do! I like to have the dishwasher empty so I can load it as I go. Or when reality happens, I put it off and regret it later but I have to at least tell you the optimal way of going about it! What makes this process so fast is that I use different methods of cooking at the same time and everything I own that can puree. Of course, you can also split it up and do it the way that fits your life best.

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You will need:

Related: A more detailed list of everything you need to make baby food.

• Oven and cookie sheet or Instant Pot
• Instant Pot steam basket if using the pot.
• Cutting board, knife and peeler
• Steamer or Rice Cooker with steamer
• Medium sized pot
• Microwave oven
• Food processor or hand blender, regular blender, or baby bullet (or all 4!)- Okay, a blender will do if that is all you have, but the hand blender is seriously the easiest. You can blend everything right in the pot you cooked in or Instant Pot.
• Ice cube trays– 4-10 (If you have less, just have different rounds of freezing)
  • Other options are these storage containers with lids that are specifically for baby food: Mumi&Bubi or Kid Simple

*** Why ice cube trays?? Each cube is 1 ounce so it’s a perfect amount for baby food. I combine 2-3 cubes per meal.I need a lot of trays because I freeze each fruit and vegetable separately, this is how you can get 40+ recipes in one meal prep afternoon!

But just because you make your own food doesn’t mean you need to be envious of others when they pull out their easy breezy baby food pouches. There are some amazing reusable baby food pouches! If you know you’ll be out and about a lot during the week, just prep a few on Sunday and have some ready to go food.

Grocery List of Fruits and Veggies:

• Sweet Potato
• Butternut Squash
• 3 Apples
• 3 Pears
• Zucchini
• Yellow Squash
• Carrots
• Bag of Frozen Peas
• Blueberries

You don’t need to cook the following, but are always great to have on hand:

• Bananas
• Avocados

Update: I used to have baby cereal here. I’ve never really used much of it, a little with my first and none with my second. There is nothing wrong with feeding your baby cereal, but there is no value either. So if you leave it out, they aren’t missing out on anything. If your baby is 6 months, then fruits and veggies are perfect first foods.

Step 1:

OVEN OPTION: Preheat Oven to 400 degrees.

• Wash sweet potato and poke it with a fork all the way around.
• Put on cookie sheet.
• Cut butternut squash in half lengthwise.
• Scoop out seeds and lay flat on the cookie sheet.
• Move on to next step until oven is preheated. Then put them in the oven for 40-45 minutes.

INSTANT POT OPTION:

• Wash sweet potato and poke it with a fork all the way around.
• Cut butternut squash in half lengthwise.
• Scoop out seeds and cut halves into quarters.
• Put one cup of water in the bottom of your Instant Pot.
• Place trivet on the bottom (you don’t have to, but will be helpful so that you can scoop the veggies out and decide how much water you want to mix in when blending)
• Turn on manual high pressure for 8 minutes.
• Let pressure naturally release for 5 minutes, then switch to quick release.

Step 2:

• I use a rice cooker for this next step, because that is what I have but other people love this steamer.
• Cut zucchini, yellow squash and carrots into pieces.
• Arrange in steamer basket with 3 cups of water on the bottom.
• All of these cook in 10-20 minutes in my Aroma rice cooker.

INSTANT POT VERSION:

• Steam zucchini and squash alone for 10 minutes.
• Carrots will go in Instant Pot in the following step.

Step 3:

• Peel and cut apples and pears into medium sized pieces.
• When you are almost done, put two cups of water into the pot on high.
• When water is boiling, put apples and pears inside.
• Boil for 8-10 minutes.

INSTANT POT VERSION: Since your butternut squash and sweet potato only took 15 minutes, your Instant Pot should be ready for the next step. You can put in as many of these fruits and vegetables depending on the accessories you have, or split it into multiple steps. I used a steam basket and a pyrex bowl to steam the apples, pears, carrots and frozen peas at the same time.

• Put a cup of water at the bottom, insert trivet and add apples. Arrange carrots in the steam basket. In another small pot or bowl (if it is oven safe, it’s Instant Pot safe), add frozen peas.
• Turn on manual high pressure for 4 minutes. Quick release.

Step 4:

* Skip for Instant Pot Version, unless you did not have an extra pot or bowl.

• Put the frozen bag of peas in a microwavable bowl with a little bit of water.
• Cook for about 5 minutes.
• As you can see, everything cooks at varying times. I put the longest items first and the shortest last. This way you can start blending, while the other fruits and vegetables are still cooking.

The next step is blending. I put a little bit of water with all of these to help them puree (sweet potato needs a little extra water than the others to get smooth). There are a few things you can use: a food processor, a baby bullet, hand blender or a ninja (any kind) blender. Hands down the hand blender with the Instant Pot makes it the fastest. But if you are saving money and not trying to buy new gadgets, use what you have.

With Miles, I used the baby bullet. My husband gave me the ninja for Christmas last year and I am obsessed with it, so now I used that AND a hand blender. For the ninja, I use the main large blender and both individual cups to speed up time.

Step 5:

• While everything is cooking, puree blueberries- pour into ice cube tray.
• Whichever vegetable is done first, puree it, pour into tray and repeat process until you have blended all of your fruits and vegetables. Do every fruit and vegetable separately. This gives you more options for recipes and combinations.
• Make sure to scoop out butternut squash and peel your sweet potatoes after cooking and before blending. I keep the skin on zucchini and yellow squash and blend it together.

Step 6:

Arrange all of your trays with lids if they have them, and put in your freezer.

Step 7:

Freeze it all! Overnight if possible. (If you don’t have enough ice cube trays, put the rest in the fridge. When the first round is done freezing, put them in pre labeled bags with the date. Then freeze the next batch.)

Step 8:

After all of your homemade baby food is frozen, take out and put into ziploc bags. Label with the fruit or vegetable. This takes less freezer space and makes it really ease to grab the food that you need.

Pat yourself on the back. You have a month’s worth of baby food and 40+ different meal options! It’s pretty satisfying to see that huge amount of food all ready to go. Make sure to check out and save the stage 2 (8-10 months) baby food meal prepand baby finger foods (10-12months) for when your baby is ready for exciting new ingredients!

I put 2 cubes in a small bowl and put in the microwave for 30 seconds. Stir and check temperature- add more time in 5 second intervals to avoid food getting too hot. Make sure to test it!

The homemade baby food resource guide will give you all the tools and recipes you need! Scroll down and subscribe to get access. Includes a first foods baby food log, baby meal tracker, shopping list and recipe ideas for all 3 stages.

And of course, my latest happy customer!

Happy Cooking!