Protein is one of the first foods you are supposed to introduce to your little ones when starting the solids process. Obviously everyone starts their journey differently but we introduced proteins (chicken, pork and beef) quite early on. It was one of the first foods our son tried after avocado and rice cereal. Originally I was using my Tommee Tippee quick cook machine to prepare my proteins and would simply chop them up and pop them in to steam and blend but my bubs was not taking to them! I even tried to mix them in with veggies later down the track but in the early days he didn't like the texture at all! Proteins are very hard to get completely 'smooth' but I did find a trick that worked. After trying a few different ways of preparing proteins one of the mums from my mothers group told me to try and blitz the protein first, prior to cooking. So I gave it a go. I still used my Tommee Tippee machine but would chop and blitz it before steaming, and then blitz it again after it was cooked. This little hack was perfect! It made it into more of a paste which was much easier to mix in with veggies whilst keeping that smooth consistency.
I cooked each protein separately and froze in ice cube trays. This is super handy as you then always have some sort of protein on hand for whatever meal you are making!
Generally babies should have around 10g of protein a day which isn't a lot so I would fill my ice cube trays just over half way (a cube is roughly 20g but ice cubes are smaller at the bottom and wider at the top). This is a super easy way of making sure you are giving the right amount of protein. I also find this way handy as you generally don't buy such small amounts of chicken, beef or pork so pre-preparing reduces waste and keeps food fresher for longer.
Once frozen, I transfer to freezer bags which are labelled and dated and use within 3 months.
Comments