Porridge is a firm favourite among mums introducing solids for the first time because it is one of the easiest ways to pack lots of nutrients into one meal. You can make it any way you want, and many families I know even have their own special recipes making porridge for baby.
Making a wholesome baby food for your little one is easy, and we as parents would want to give the best for our love ones.
Making The Perfect Nutritious Porridge For Baby
Basically, it incorporates grains (rice most commonly), veges, and meats but you can get creative and add legumes, eggs, milk, tofu, and so on. As for equipment, all you really need is a pot over a stove, but you can use the rice cooker or slow cooker, or an electric lunch box.
Here are 3 types of porridge you can make for baby:
All Vege Rice Porridge
My family swears by this recipe and it incorporates ikan bilis powder as a seasoning. You can buy this or make it yourself at home by baking cleaned ikan bilis and blending it into a fine powder.
The rest of the ingredients are rice, carrots, tomatoes, potatoes and onions. Simply toss everything in with an appropriate amount of water and let it cook. 40 minutes to an hour should be enough to get everything nice and soft. The ikan bilis powder gives the porridge a sweetness and added calcium, omega-3 and iron!
Easy Fish Porridge
The most important ingredient in this porridge is really fresh fish. You can use any fish you like, we’ve used salmon, ikan bawal, white bait, tenggiri, just make sure the flesh is firm and shiny and everything smells fresh. You can opt to add more grains other than rice into a porridge- we’ve tried rice with millet and quinoa with this recipe for the extra protein and nutrients.
Again this wholesome baby food is really easy to make. Cook grains first, add some chopped carrot if you like and cook for about an hour. Once everything is nearly done, add the fish and some spring onion and cook for another 5-10 minutes.
Sweet Potato & Apple Oat Porridge
This is a sweet baby porridge and really easy and nourishing. Sweet potato and apple are a really great combination of sweet and tart and together with oatmeal it makes a comforting meal indeed. Start by steaming the sweet potato and apple till soft.
Then prepare your oats by pouring boiling water over baby oats or cooking them over a stove. Then mash the sweet potato and apple in. I like to finish with a dash of cinnamon and a scoop of peanut butter because my baby loves it!
Hope this helps!