How to prepare baby puree for the winter: apple, pumpkin, squash and other baby food recipes. We stock up on applesauce for the winter for babies. You can make baby puree for the winter.

To the question “Which puree is better?” I answered for myself a long time ago - best fruit puree for babies , and even for an older child- of course homemade. I offer you a step-by-step photo recipe for making fruit Homemade apricot puree.

Using this recipe, I have been making puree for my child for three years now, not only from apricots, but also from other fruits: pears, apples, plums, peaches. It's going great, even though we've grown out of babies a long time ago ;) Plus, you don't have to worry about a lack of vitamins in the winter. Most of the vitamins are in place. In addition, almost all fruits (especially apricots and apples) can be classified as fruits, which in itself makes such purees irreplaceable.

How to make fruit puree at home

Wash the apricots, remove the pits and place them in a saucepan. Add 50-100 grams of water (so as not to burn), put on low heat and simmer until soft.

During this time, we wash and sterilize the jars. I take small jars (170-200 g) of baby puree, mustard, sauce, etc.

For sterilization, I came up with a high-tech special device: I cut out a corresponding hole in a regular preservation lid. Like this.

I place each jar on my super sterilizer and sterilize for no more than 2 minutes.

I also put the jar lids in boiling water for sterilization.

When the apricots become soft (depending on the degree of ripeness of the berries, this can take from 10 minutes to half an hour), they need to be cooled.

Blend the cooled apricots in a blender until pureed. Then bring to a boil, put into jars and close the lids tightly.

I'm cooking apricot puree without sugar, since I have been giving it to my daughter since she was 6 months old, and feeding an infant excludes the presence of sugar. If you like a sweeter puree, you can add sugar to the blender to taste when blending the apricots. The sugar will completely dissolve when you bring the puree to a boil.

Be careful: when the puree is on the fire, it “shoots”, so you need to cover the pan with a lid, periodically lifting it and stirring the puree so that it does not burn.

If you are preparing fruit puree from pears or apples, it is better to rub them through a sieve rather than beat them in a blender, since after the blender you get an uneven puree-like mass.

In the end it turned out like this fruit puree for babies for the winter.

Looks amazing!

Two kilograms of peeled apricots yielded 10 jars of ready-made apricot puree (1.7-1.8 l).

“Fruit puree for babies for the winter: photo recipe” especially for the site All rights reserved

For the first feeding of babies, vegetable purees from zucchini, broccoli or cauliflower are used. When the child’s body gets used to the new menu, fruit dishes are gradually introduced into the diet. For infants, puree is prepared from apples, pears, plums, peaches, etc. In the Daughters-Sons online store you can get acquainted with a huge assortment of fruit purees made by domestic and foreign manufacturers. In this article we will tell you how to prepare such dishes yourself.

A universal recipe for making homemade fruit puree





Thanks to the combined nutritional composition, including foods rich in vitamins and microelements, the baby will be able to develop properly. It is recommended to introduce a new dish no earlier than 6.5 months, after successful introduction to vegetables. Give it between feedings or along with cottage cheese.

Puree can be made from one type of fruit (monocomponent) or from several (polycomponent). When choosing fruits for homemade puree, you need to pay attention to the following points:

  • the skin of the fruit should be free of dark places, damage and rot;
  • You should choose only ripe fruits;
  • Homemade, self-grown fruits are healthier than store-bought ones.

All fruits, except bananas, are subject to heat treatment. Peel the fruits using a knife or steam (apricots, plums). Fruits with skin can be given to children who are already 8 months old. They will add a new taste and make the puree more satisfying.

Apples, apricots, pears or plums should be steamed. (It is possible in water, but steam treatment helps to better preserve vitamins). To do this, use a double boiler or place the peeled fruit on a sieve set over a pan of boiling water. Steam apple and pear pieces for 6-8 minutes, plums, cherries, apricots for 5 minutes. Then grind the fruit in a blender or through a sieve. The dish is ready. You can give it to your baby right away or freeze it for the winter. If you want to roll up the puree, then the pureed mass needs to be boiled again and then put into sterile jars.

From 10 months of age, you can try giving fresh fruit puree - pureed apple or pear is ideal. It is best to always make it fresh and not store it in the refrigerator.

Important!

Orange and berries (strawberries, raspberries, blackberries) can cause an allergic reaction, so they should be introduced into the diet later, when the child’s body gets used to different types of complementary foods.

conclusions

Fruit puree contains many vitamins and minerals, so it should become an integral part of your child's diet from a very early age. Preparing this dish at home is quite simple. Most recipes suggest steaming the fruits and grinding them in a blender. All fruits must be ripe and fresh.

Vegetable and fruit purees often become the baby’s first food after breast milk or formula, so many mothers prefer to prepare it themselves. Although modern manufacturers convince us that baby food is devoid of preservatives and harmful additives, fresh vegetables and fruits are much healthier, especially when it comes to feeding infants. And preparing baby puree at home is not so difficult.

Vegetables or fruits?

Let's try to cook it ourselves for our beloved baby. Despite the fact that pediatricians of the last century recommended starting complementary feeding with fruits, it is better to first introduce the child to vegetables - this is the conclusion that modern doctors and nutritionists have come to. Boiled vegetables do not irritate the gastrointestinal tract, are better absorbed, satisfy hunger, and do not cause allergies or increased gas formation. In addition, vegetables do not contain fructose, which irritates the pancreas. And one more compelling argument in favor of the fact that it is better to start with vegetables - fruits are tastier, and if the baby tries them first, he will refuse vegetables, because they will seem more bland to him.

How to prepare baby vegetable puree

What can you make baby puree from? The ideal puree for first feeding is cauliflower or zucchini. A little later, you can introduce pumpkin, broccoli, carrots, potatoes and green peas. Before cooking, vegetables are washed well, peeled, cut into pieces and cooked - steamed, in the oven or in the usual way, in water. The first two methods are preferable because baking and steaming preserve vitamins, minerals, nutrients and natural color in vegetables. And most importantly, such vegetables are much tastier. Some nutritionists recommend boiling vegetables with their skins on and then peeling them, so choose your own cooking method.

If you still had to cook vegetables in a saucepan, use enamel dishes, add less water and lower the vegetables into boiling water. Cook until soft, but do not overcook vegetables and fruits, otherwise they will become tasteless and lose a large amount of vitamins. Ready-made vegetables are crushed with a blender until smooth and slightly diluted with water, vegetable broth, breast milk or a mixture to a pulp, since the child does not yet know how to digest thick food. Small pieces of vegetables in puree sometimes become the reason that the baby refuses to eat, so the knives in the blender must be well sharpened, and if there is no equipment, you can grind the vegetables through a sieve. Salt and spices are usually not added to baby vegetable puree, and if the baby is more than 6 months old, you can put a little butter in the puree.

A few rules for making baby puree at home

  • Use only fresh vegetables and fruits.
  • Water for cooking vegetables should be filtered or from bottles.
  • If you use frozen foods, choose only whole vegetables and fruits, as they retain the maximum nutrients.
  • All utensils for preparing baby food must be perfectly clean, so if a knife falls on the floor, you should wash it well. Pets are also not allowed in the kitchen during the cooking process.
  • Do not use vegetables and fruits high in nitrates in the diet of infants - spinach, lettuce, beets, melon and watermelons.
  • It is recommended to soak vegetables purchased in a store in water to remove nitrates: this requires 1–2 hours, for potatoes - up to 24 hours.
  • Mix fruits and berries with a sour taste with sweet fruits - for example, black currants go well with banana or pear. The baby is unlikely to like sour puree.
  • Give your child only fresh food, and it is better to eat yesterday’s puree from the refrigerator yourself.

DIY baby fruit puree

Children are more willing to eat fruit puree because fruit is tastier and sweeter. Fruits contain a large amount of vitamins, minerals, trace elements, fiber and antioxidants, so they are very beneficial for a growing body. However, fruits are strong allergens, especially berries, bananas, pomegranates and apricots, so they should be given with caution while monitoring the child's reaction. The most low-allergenic fruits are apples and pears, so it is better to start complementary feeding with them, and then introduce all other fruits. First, the baby is fed with a one-component puree, prepared from only one product, and then you can mix different vegetables and fruits, and not only with each other. Combinations of fruits and vegetables are very tasty, such as apples and zucchini, pumpkin and pears.

Fruits must be of high quality, without damage, ripe and juicy, and the rules for preparing fruits do not differ from the rules for cooking vegetables. Naturally, fruit puree is not sweetened with honey and sugar - the later the child learns the taste of sugar, the stronger his health will be.

Flavorful pumpkin puree

Kids eat it with pleasure because of its pleasant sweetish taste, and pumpkin is also very healthy. It contains a whole storehouse of various vitamins, including vitamin T, which normalizes metabolism in the body. For pumpkin puree, a small pumpkin is suitable, since large fruits are not as tasty and are difficult to peel.

Cut the pumpkin in half, and then into small slices, one or two of which (depending on the baby’s appetite) cut into cubes. Boil the pumpkin in a double boiler or in water for 20 minutes, while warm, beat in a blender until smooth and puree and dilute with water or mixture if necessary. Add oil and salt depending on the age of the child.

Tender broccoli puree

One of my favorite homemade baby puree recipes is made from broccoli. This cabbage is extremely healthy because it contains potassium, iron, calcium and other valuable substances. It contains much more vitamin C than lemon, and the reason for its nutritional value is its high protein content.

Cut the broccoli into florets, wash them thoroughly and steam for 20 minutes. Cabbage cooks faster in water - fresh broccoli will take 7 minutes, and frozen broccoli will take about 15 minutes. You don't need a lot of water to puree broccoli; it should lightly cover the vegetables. Once the cabbage is soft, puree it in a blender or pass through a sieve. If you are preparing puree for children over one year old, be sure to add butter - the kids will gobble up the broccoli on both cheeks!

How to make baby pear puree at home

Pear is a very tender, tasty and healthy fruit that rarely causes intolerance. In addition to its high vitamin value, pears have other beneficial properties - they facilitate digestion and remove toxins from the body.

Choose green pears for baby food to reduce the risk of allergies, which, although rare, occur among babies. Peel and core the fruit with seeds, and then simmer the pear in a thick-bottomed bowl in a small amount of water for 15 minutes. Cool the pear slightly and blend it in a blender with a small amount of the remaining pear broth. For larger babies, you don’t need to boil the fruit, but add half a teaspoon of natural honey to the puree.

Zucchini and apple puree

This delicious puree will appeal to little gourmets; in addition, zucchini is considered the most hypoallergenic vegetable, which, due to its high potassium content, has a beneficial effect on the heart. Apples contain iodine, iron and phosphorus; also, due to the high concentration of vitamin C, apples help in the prevention of colds and viral infections.

Wash the zucchini and apples well, peel them from the seeds, cut them into pieces and cook in a saucepan for about 20 minutes, keeping in mind that zucchini cooks 5 minutes faster. By the way, steam apples for 15 minutes, zucchini for 10 minutes. Next, vegetables and fruits are crushed in a blender, mixed and brought to a boil. This is the best side dish for children with allergies!

Exotic mango

Sometimes you can pamper your baby with exotic fruits - for example, make mango puree. This is a very delicate fruit with an original taste, containing 12 amino acids and improving sleep.

Choose only ripe fruits - soft and red-yellow in color. Peel the mango from thick skin and large seeds, place the pulp in a blender, add 2 tbsp. l. water and make a puree, and then heat it in a saucepan for a few minutes. To ease digestion, it is better to give a baby under one year of age puree with heat treatment, and older children can be fed raw mango.

Carrot and potato puree

Prepare regular mashed potatoes without oil. Peel the carrots, grate them and simmer with butter and vegetable broth - about 1 tsp is required for 200 g of carrots. butter and 150 g of broth. When the carrots become very soft, rub them through a sieve, and then place them on a plate; place the potato puree on the other half. Let the child choose whether to mix two types of purees or eat them separately!

Pumpkin and apple puree

This sugar-free sweet pumpkin-apple puree, prepared in a double boiler, is suitable for children who are already accustomed to “adult” food and are able to accept a new unusual dish. It is better to take pumpkin with gray or green skin and bright pulp - such fruits contain more vitamins and other useful substances. Green apples are suitable because they contain fewer allergens.

Cut the pulp of pumpkin and apples without peel and seeds into pieces, place in a double boiler and cook for 20 minutes. Grind pumpkin, apples and raisins in a blender or by hand using a masher if your child has already learned to chew. They say that this puree is very good for skin and hair, and you can check the truth of this statement yourself if you start feeding your baby this dish.

In the fall, you can take care of preparing vegetables for baby purees. Some vegetables, such as pumpkin, carrots and apples, are stored fresh, and zucchini, broccoli, and berries are frozen in small portions, since due to frequent freezing and thawing, vegetables lose vitamins and become tasteless. You can roll up fruit and vegetable purees in jars, but such a snack should not be given to infants. Remember that the taste of vegetables determines whether the baby will love them in the future, so try to prepare appetizing and tender purees - for health and a good mood!

It's no secret that most glossy vegetables and fruits lying on store shelves during the winter months have not only poor nutritional value, but also rather poor taste. That is why every autumn we rush to prepare delicious, vitamin-rich foods from our garden for the winter.

And we try not only for ourselves. All the best and vitamins, of course, for them, for our flowers of life, for children!

However, everything has its own nuances. For example, it is worth remembering that not all canning methods are suitable for a baby’s diet.

Therefore, we tried to combine all the most delicious and healthy things into this article.

Puree for the little ones.

It is worth noting that homemade fruit and vegetable purees are no worse than store-bought ones. Their taste is a little more intense. The consistency is often quite a bit thinner (especially in comparison with purees, the consistency of which is “corrected” by the manufacturer with the help of starch, pectin and other relatively harmless stabilizing components). If you are confident in the environmental friendliness of your vegetables and fruits and make the puree correctly (mandatory boiling, pouring only into sterilized containers), your purees can even be used for the first feeding. And from 10 to 11 months it is not only possible, but even better for the baby.

We consider the following purees to be the best options “from our own garden”, tested from our own experience:

  • single-component vegetables from zucchini, cauliflower, broccoli;
  • two-component vegetable from zucchini with potatoes, zucchini with cauliflower or broccoli, cauliflower or broccoli with potatoes;
  • fruit apple and apple-pear.

All purees are made in general according to the same scheme. Let's look at it using apple puree as an example.

Recipe.

Products:

Apples - peeled, with seeds and surrounding seals removed.

Cooking method:

1. Thoroughly washed, peeled, as mentioned above, apples are cut into random slices into an enamel saucepan.

2. Add some clean (filtered) water. The water should not completely cover the fruits; it is only needed to prevent the apples from burning during cooking.

3. Place on low heat and cook, covering with a lid, until the apples are soft.

4. As soon as the hearths have become soft, remove the saucepan from the heat and “transform” the boiled slices into a fine puree using a submersible blender.

5. Place on low heat and simmer for about 15-20 minutes (the puree should boil a little, but not darken).

6. Pour the hot puree into sterilized jars. Seal tightly.

Frozen mixtures for soups and compotes.

I'm a big fan of freezing as a way to preserve valuable foods for the winter. Firstly, it allows you to preserve a fairly large (compared to other methods) part of the vitamins in vegetables and fruits. And for a child’s diet this is very important.

Secondly, frozen mixtures are very convenient. They have helped our family out more than once.

Using them to prepare a delicious vegetable soup for your baby in winter is a matter of just a few minutes. Just put the mixture in a saucepan with boiling water, and after cooking, add the meat (separately cooked, of course). For the little ones, cooked vegetables with broth and meat can be turned into puree soup using a blender.

It's also easy to make a delicious berry compote from the frozen mixture.

Preparing the mixture itself during the season is as easy as shelling pears. Its composition usually depends on your taste. I will talk about the preparation using the example of one of the mixtures for vegetable soup that I prepare for my child.

Recipe.

Products:

A small young zucchini, several tomatoes, bell peppers, carrots.

It’s worth mentioning right away that I also put non-frozen potatoes and onions in the soup, because... They store well without freezing. But to simplify further preparation, if desired, they can also be frozen in a mixture with the indicated vegetables.

Cooking method:

1. Wash the vegetables thoroughly, peel the carrots and zucchini.

2. Cut all the vegetables except carrots into small cubes, approximately equal in size. Three carrots on a coarse grater.

3. Mix and pack into bags. A serving in a bag is for one cooking.

4. Put it in the freezer. If it is possible to regulate the temperature of the freezer (the function is present in almost all modern refrigerators), turn it on for 3-4 hours at maximum, then at -18C. The faster the vegetables freeze, the more vitamins remain in them.

Sweets for older children.

Well, what child doesn’t like sweets? And who would argue that homemade preserves and jams are much preferable on a child’s menu than cakes, sweets and sweet bars.

Speaking of bars. Up to a certain age, store-bought ones with many E-components can be easily replaced with delicious homemade ones. They are easy to make by chopping dried fruits (dried apricots, prunes, figs) and nuts and making bars from the resulting mass. I also add a little honey to them. But this is a lyrical digression.

Preparing baby food for the winter, which can be more difficult. Every mother wants to feed her child a high-quality, varied diet of good quality during the complementary feeding period. But what if it's winter? It is necessary to introduce complementary foods, and usually the first product is vegetables, and where to get them in winter, and fresh fruits will be expensive. Many mothers are immediately confused, this issue has hardly been studied in our country, few people know that you can freeze baby purees, but almost everyone knows how to make homemade juice and put it in 3-liter jars. So young mothers shouldn’t worry, now I’ll tell you how I prepared baby food for the winter.

It was supposed to start in May, so while I was still pregnant, I didn’t think about complementary feeding, I was sure that I would definitely find zucchini or broccoli during this period, as a last resort I thought about starting complementary feeding with cereals if the baby was born before the due date.

But as food was introduced into the child’s diet, she realized that it was necessary to prepare food for the winter. Of course, you can buy everything now, who can argue, but either it’s expensive, or it’s greenhouse-grown and grown with fertilizers, and we have our own garden, so you can freeze all your homemade goods.

What foods do I usually freeze for myself?

Always, even before the baby was born, I froze (grated, sliced, rectangular cubes), bell peppers (cut into small cubes), greens (parsley and dill, chopped and frozen in water trays). My standard set consisted of these three ingredients, very convenient for making soup or using them for various stews, meat casseroles, etc. But with the advent of the child, I had to think about whether I really need to freeze carrots, since getting them during the winter is not difficult, you can freeze them once a week to make it easier and reduce the cooking time. There was no question about bell peppers and herbs; they are from the home garden and are difficult to find in decent condition in winter. By reducing the frozen carrots, I increased the freezer area.

Frozen baby food

Frozen baby food can be divided into two types, and frozen foods. What can you freeze? Almost all the foods you prefer to eat. But there are some vegetables that are best blanched, for example, otherwise they begin to dry out when freshly frozen, which looks scary and tastes tasteless, I didn’t like it.

Some fruits after freezing are intended only for compote, for example, cherries, they become too soft, lose their shape and spread out, although the taste in compote is normal.

But best of all, but then their shelf life decreases; read more about this here.

Frozen products for baby food


My freeze!

Usually, for baby food, I freeze cauliflower (the links will describe how to freeze the product), zucchini, pumpkin, green peas, green beans, carrots, and bell peppers. All products except pumpkin are prepared in season, but the pumpkin does not need to be frozen immediately; usually, if I don’t plan to cut it, it lies whole in a cool place. But if the pumpkin is cut, I try to use it all at once, because I noticed that if there is something left, it will definitely disappear. Therefore, the leftovers are either frozen or used for pumpkin juice, pumpkin puree, which is frozen and then used to prepare baby food.

For fruits, I freeze cherries with pits, raspberries, black and red currants, dogwoods, plums, persimmons, and gooseberries. Everything is frozen as the season progresses, everything is fresh, washed and dried so there is no extra weight in the form of ice.

I definitely freeze greens, namely dill and parsley; I also froze spinach this year, but it’s only for flavor in the dish, to stew. I make dill and parsley separately and mixes, since not all dishes can add both parsley and dill. I also have these herbs in dry form, in case the freeze ends.

Volumes of frozen baby food

You shouldn’t freeze large volumes of food because you’re afraid there won’t be enough. Spare your work and money. The child is small, so he won’t eat a lot of broccoli or cauliflower, and you will always have potatoes, carrots, cereals and meat for making soups. If in doubt, you can calculate how much the baby will eat, at least a 100 gram jar at a time, and a varied diet, i.e. a lot of products. Therefore, a couple of kilograms of one product will be enough; we also look at the size of our freezer. After all, you can alternate homemade frozen baby food with purchased jarred food, or buy frozen vegetables and fruits in the store.

Therefore, you should immediately choose a frozen food company that suits you in terms of quality and price.

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