5 Ground Beef Recipes for Baby-Led Weaning
5 Ground Beef Recipes for Baby-Led Weaning
Meat is a great first food for babies. It’s packed with iron and other important nutrition, not to mention a new texture experience for your baby to try out.
But many parents and caregivers struggle with how to serve meat safely to babies.
And that’s EXACTLY where ground beef can be so helpful.
I like to think of ground beef as the “gateway meat” that will open your eyes to the different types of protein your baby can (safely) eat!
Here are 5 ways you can use ground beef for baby-led weaning starting when your baby is 6 months of age and exhibiting the other signs of readiness to feed.
Good Old Fashioned Baby Burger
Even if you don’t fancy yourself a good cook, I’m pretty sure you can make a burger.
And the way I like to introduce babies to beef is by making a hamburger, cutting it into strips and serving it to your baby.
When choosing meat products for babies, the fattier the better. That’s because fat equates to moisture. And the fat in meat acts as a lubricant that in turn helps reduce baby’s risk of choking.
We never want to serve dry foods of any type to babies, especially dry meat because it is a potential choking hazard. For a list of other foods not to feed your baby check out my free download “15 FOODS NEVER TO FEED YOUR BABY”.
Always be sure to cook ground meat products to an internal temperature of 160 degrees F. Although YOU might love a burger on the rare or medium-rare side, we need to make sure ground beef products are cooked all the way through for babies in order to kill any potentially harmful pathogens.
If you’re curious about more temperature-related issues when it comes to feeding babies, check out this episode from my BABY-LED WEANING MADE EASY podcast called “Temperature: Should I Serve My Baby’s Food Hot, Cold, Room Temp…Does it Matter?”.
As for the size of the strips of meat to serve for baby-led weaning, when you’re just starting out at 6-7 months of age, offer food in the shape of a stick or a spear. That stick or spear should be about the size of an adult pinky finger (…or a fat French fry is another way to think of it).
You might be inclined to crumble up ground beef into really small pieces, thinking that it’s safer for baby to eat. It’s actually MORE dangerous to serve very small pieces of food early on. Your baby is just learning HOW to eat, and WHAT to do with that food in his or her mouth.
We want baby to be able to regulate the size of bite he or she is learning to take, manipulate it in their mouth and spit it out if needed, eventually learning to swallow some.
Very small pieces of food (besides the fact that babies can’t pick them up on their own at 6 and 7 months of age because they don’t yet have their pincer grasp)...these small pieces can actually present a choking hazard if they’re cut the size that could potentially block the baby’s airway.
The key with baby-led weaning is to facilitate independent eating by serving the right size foods for your baby’s age and stage. Start bigger in strips and spears and later on when your baby is more proficient you can start serving smaller pieces.
Here’s another good podcast episode you might like if you’re nervous about serving your baby meat, it’s called “Meat: How to Prepare Meat Safely for Baby-Led Weaning”.
Meatballs with Low Sodium Marinara Sauce
We’re big meatball fans in my house. But commercial meatballs tend to be WAY too high in sodium for babies.
But it’s easy to make your own meatballs that babies + the other people in your house will love.
Serve them with this low sodium marinara sauce to moisten things up, especially for those early eaters.
This recipe calls for breadcrumbs and I always use panko (Japanese breadcrumbs) when making recipes for baby-led weaning as it is lower in sodium than traditional or homemade breadcrumbs.
This particular meatball recipe is made with half ground beef and half ground pork. You can always use whatever type of ground meat your family enjoys most. You may need to add in additional fat for moisture if you choose a leaner meat, like turkey.
Ingredients
For Meatballs
1 pound ground beef
1 pound ground pork
1 cup panko breadcrumbs
½ cup milk
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
½ teaspoon black pepper
1 medium onion, chopped (about ½ cup)
2 eggs
For Low Sodium Marinara Sauce
2-28 oz cans peeled tomatoes, no salt added
4 garlic cloves, minced
3/4 teaspoon dried oregano
pinch red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
Instructions
For Meatballs
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Mix all ingredients together well.
Shape meat mixture into 40 meatballs about 1 ½ inch diameter. Place in 40 mini muffin tins or on roasting or baking pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes until done and light brown. Cool before serving to baby.
For Low Sodium Marinara Sauce
Using a large sauce pan, add 1 tablespoon olive oil and set to medium-low heat until it slightly simmers.
Add garlic, oregano, red pepper flakes, and salt. Stir occasionally until fragrant (about 30 seconds).
Stir in tomatoes and their juice. Increase the heat to high and simmer until the mixture becomes thick, about 15 minutes
Carefully transfer the sauce to a food processor or high-speed blender. Pulse until the mixture is the texture of a medium-thick sauce. Cool before serving to baby.
Kofta Kebabs with Tzatziki Sauce
Kofta refers to kebabs made with ground meat on a skewer and is a great high iron food for babies. The tzatziki sauce is made with Greek yogurt and cucumber and incorporates mint and lemon juice for a unique flavor combination that babies will love. Serve with grilled flat bread or rice for a flavorful, complete meal your whole family can enjoy.
Ingredients
For Kebabs
Minced garlic, 2 teaspoons
Salt, ¼ teaspoon
Ground beef, 16 oz (1 lb)
Onion, 3 tablespoons grated or shredded
Parsley, 3 tablespoons chopped
Coriander, 1 tablespoon
Cumin, 1 teaspoon
Cinnamon, ½ teaspoon
Ground allspice, ½ teaspoon
Ground ginger, ¼ teaspoon
Black pepper, ¼ teaspoon
Olive oil, ¼ cup
For Tzatziki
Yogurt, 2 cups whole milk yogurt
Cucumber, 1 medium-sized, peeled, halved and seeded
Salt, ½ teaspoon
Minced garlic, ½ teaspoon
Olive oil, 1 tablespoon
Lemon juice, 1 teaspoon
Fresh mint, 1 tablespoon finely chopped
Instructions
For Kebabs
Combine garlic and salt and mash with knife or mortar and pestle into a paste. Mix paste with meat, onion, parsley and spices.
Line baking sheet with aluminum foil. Divide meat mixture into 25 oblong ball shapes. Mold each piece around a skewer. If you are using wooden skewers, soak them for 10 minutes in water before threading.
Place skewers on the pan, cover and refrigerate for between 30 minutes and 12 hours.
Heat grill pan over medium heat or prepare grill. Brush grill with olive oil. Working in batches, grill kebabs and turn occasionally and brown until cooked thoroughly, about 5-7 minutes. Cool and serve with tzatziki
For Tzatziki
Grate cucumber using large holes of a box grater. Sprinkle with salt and set aside for 20 minutes. Squeeze as much water as possible out of cucumbers using a paper towel.
Smash the garlic with salt and mash into a coarse paste. Stir the cucumber, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice and mint into yogurt. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour and serve with kofta.
Mini Mushroom Meatloaves
This is one of my favorite combination food recipes for baby-led weaning. Once your baby has been eating individual foods for a few weeks (usually about the first 2 months of BLW), most babies are ready to transition to combination foods.
Combination foods represent new texture and nutrition experiences for your baby, plus new sensory opportunities and flavor profiles to explore.
Ingredients
Onion, medium
Mushrooms, 8 pieces
Olive oil, 1 tablespoon
Minced garlic, 1 teaspoon
Dry sherry, 2 tablespoons
Dried thyme, 1 teaspoon
Ground beef, 16 oz (1 lb)
Breadcrumbs, ½ cup
Black pepper, ½ teaspoon
Egg, 1 medium
Ketchup, ¼ cup unsweetened (optional)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Combine onion & mushrooms in food processor
On the stove, add oil to pan and sautee onion and mushroom mix for 5 minutes
Add garlic, cook for 2 more minutes, add sherry
Remove from heat, add thyme
In mixer or bowl combine ground beef, breadcrumbs, black pepper, egg and mushroom/onion mixture
Spoon meatloaf mixture into muffin tins and bake for 15 minutes or until internal temperature registers 160 degrees F
Optional: brush tops of meatloaves with ketchup
Chili con Carne
This last recipe is a Chili con Carne recipe adapted from my grandma’s Betty Crocker cookbook. The original recipe is linked, but I reduced the sodium with a few tweaks. We want to minimize sodium when preparing foods for babies so they learn to taste the flavors of food, and not just the salt.
For more information on minimizing sodium for baby-led weaning, check out my podcast episode: 3 EASY WAYS TO MINIMIZE SODIUM
I love this recipe because it contains ground beef with that all-important iron that babies need. But it also has kidney beans - a plant based source of iron. The tomatoes in the recipe help your baby’s body absorb the iron from the meat and the kidney beans.
And don’t worry about the cocoa in the ingredients, it’s unsweetened and adds a really unique flavor to this child recipe your whole family will love! And the chili powder is also fine for babies to have, it’s not spicy in the amount added to this recipe.
Serve this chili over pasta (but ensure baby has been exposed to the potentially allergenic food protein wheat a number of times without reaction before offering in a combination food like this).
Ingredients
Ground beef, 16 oz (1 lb)
1 large onion, chopped (about 1 cup)
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
1 teaspoon unsweetened baking cocoa
½ teaspoon red pepper sauce (I use Tabasco, it’s just a touch :)
1 28-oz can diced tomatoes, no added salt
1 18-oz can red kidney beans, no added salt (undrained)
Instructions
Cook beef, onion and garlic in a Dutch oven or large saucepan over medium-high heat for about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until beef is cooked through and brown. Drain
Stir in remaining ingredients except beans. Heat to boiling. Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
Stir in beans (including their juice, don’t drain the beans). Reduce heat to low, simmer uncovered for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally until desired thickness. Cool before serving to baby.
More Baby-Led Weaning Food Fun
So there you have it, 5 easy ways to serve your baby beef for baby-led weaning. Do you think your baby can eat some of those?
Definitely start out easy with the burger…but once your baby has explored a few different tastes and textures, don’t forget to regularly offer high iron foods like meat.
If you’re just getting started with solid foods, come check out my free online workshop “BABY-LED WEANING FOR BEGINNERS: How to get your baby to try 100 foods before turning 1 without you having to spoon-feed purees or buy pouches!”
Everyone on the free workshop gets a copy of my 100 FIRST FOODS list so you can start knocking out these new foods with your baby, including BEEF! Click to register for this week’s workshop times.
