Dried or Fresh Herbs & Spices in Baby Food Recipes?
When you make homemade baby food, a great benefit is that you are able to incorporate herbs and spices
into baby’s meals. Using herbs and spices that are common in the family’s meals helps get your baby ready to transition to “table foods” and eating foods the family eats during mealtime.
Jolianne had asked if it is best to use dried or fresh herbs and spices when adding zest to baby’s meals. The answer is use whatever you have; any herb or spice, dried or fresh, is wonderful. Of course, using fresh herbs and spices will give you more flavor than their dried counterparts. However it may be difficult to find fresh herbs and spices during certain times of the year, depending on your location.
Here are a few ideas for incorporating spiced and herbs into baby’s foods.
Fruits:
Apple(Sauce): use cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, vanilla
Pears: use ginger, cinnamon, a drip of vanilla
Bananas: use cinnamon, ginger, allspice
Dairy:
Plain Yogurt : use with mint, cinnamon, allspice, cardamom, vanilla
Vegetables:
Sweet potato: use with nutmeg, cinnamon and/or cardamom
Pumpkin: use with cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and dash of vanilla
Carrots: use with basil & garlic – baked cinnamon carrots are yummy too!
Green beans: use with garlic powder
Mashed potatoes(white) : use with dill weed or garlic
Winter Squash (acorn, hubbard, butternut etc.): use with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger
Visit our Spice Up Your Baby Food page to learn more about adding spices to baby food recipes.
Category: Spices
I wanted to roast my own raw garlic (with olive oil) instead of using garlic power (all the recipes state garlic powder), but I’ve found nothing on the web regarding adding roasted garlic to baby food. I came across http://www.garlic-central.com/dangers.html which warns about leaving garlic in oil- would there be a risk if I had garlic in baby food sitting at room temperature for 1/2 hour ? Are there any general risks associated with feeding your baby roasted garlic in their baby food ?
Comment by Luci — February 10, 2009 @ 1:34 pm