Healthy Homemade Baby Food with Rice Flour
Rice flour is an ideal and convenient ingredient for homemade baby food. This recipe introduces three dishes for babies and toddlers – porridge, creamy spinach with white fish, and colorful vegetable gnocchi – all done with fresh ingredients. Choose the recipe that suits the developmental stage of the child.
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It is very easy to thicken the sauce with rice flour. Once heated, the sauce does not separate over time.
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Roasted soy powder can be purchased online or at Asian grocery stores. Alternatively, roasted sesame, almond powder, or cinnamon also work well.
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All rice flour is naturally gluten-free. Make this dish completely gluten-free by using gluten-free substitutes for other ingredients as needed.
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Ingredients
For the porridge
| 1 tablespoon (9g) | rice flour |
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| 3-5 tablespoons (45-75ml) | water |
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| Soy powder or ground sesame for garnish (see Tips) | |
For the gnocchi
| ½ (100g) | onion (about ½ cup) |
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| ½ (100g) | potato (about ½ cup) |
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| 1 (100g) | carrot (about ½ cup) |
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| 3.5oz/100g | kabocha pumpkin or canned pumpkin puree (about ½ cup) |
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| 1 cup (135g) | rice flour |
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For the creamy spinach with white fish
| 2oz/50g | white fish |
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| 0.25oz/7g | fresh spinach (about ¼ cup) |
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| Rice flour for dusting fish | |
| 1 teaspoon(3g) | rice flour for mixing with water |
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| ½ cup (100ml) | water |
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Directions
For the porridge
In a small saucepan over low heat, combine rice flour and water. Whisk gently, and turn off the heat when the liquid becomes translucent. Serve in a bowl with a sprinkle of soy powder or ground sesame on top (see Tips).
For the vegetable gnocchi
Coarsely chop onions, potatoes, carrots, and pumpkin. Put them in a pot of water and bring just under a boil. Once cooked, save a cup of cooking liquid for mixing later. Discard the onions. Mash each vegetable separately and set aside.
For the potato gnocchi, combine the mashed potato with 3 1/2 tablespoons of rice flour and some liquid from cooking the vegetables. Mix mashed carrots with 1/3 cup rice flour for the carrot gnocchi, and the mashed pumpkin with 1/3 cup rice flour for the pumpkin gnocchi. Knead each gnocchi separately until reaching the softness of the earlobe. Add the liquid from cooking the vegetables to make it soft.
Boil water in a pot. Take a small amount of the dough, about the size of a little finger. Curl it, then flatten it slightly. Repeat for all three flavored gnocchi doughs. Boil them. When they start to float, transfer them to a bowl of water, and drain.
For the creamy white fish with spinach
Dust white fish with rice flour, and cook in a boiled water. When cooked, drain and mash the fish into small pieces.
Boil the spinach in hot water, drain, and finely chop them. Combine with the fish.
Add water and rice flour into a small pot over medium-heat. When boiling, add the fish mixture and simmer until creamy. When cool enough, serve.
- This recipe uses US customary units. Measurement equivalents include: 1 teaspoon = 5ml, 1 tablespoon = 15ml, and 1 US cup = 237ml or 8fl oz. (1 metric cup = 250ml or 8.5fl oz.)
- The cooking time using microwave oven in this recipe is based on 1,000W in the US.
- The temperature and baking time may be different depending on the oven used. Please adjust accordingly.
- All rice flour is naturally gluten-free. Make this dish completely gluten-free by using gluten-free substitutes for other ingredients as needed.