5 Pumpkin Recipes for Baby-Led Weaning
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5 Pumpkin Recipes for Baby-Led Weaning
I love pumpkin for babies! Pumpkin is a nutrient-packed food that your baby can safely enjoy using baby-led weaning. It also contains fiber and vitamin A and it’s a unique new taste and texture that babies love exploring. Here are 5 ways you can introduce pumpkin for baby-led weaning starting when your baby is 6 months of age and exhibiting the other signs of readiness to feed.
Roasted Pumpkin
Pumpkins are great for carving but you can eat them too! You can use a regular pumpkin but the smaller sugar pumpkins (also called pie or sweet pumpkins) work great too. Be sure to clean the outside of your pumpkin with running water before slicing your knife through.
Pumpkin Oatmeal
OK, by mid-fall my kids are admittedly sick of anything pumpkin-related. See Claire’s face above. But that’s because I put it in anything. And everything.
You can add almost anything to oatmeal but pumpkin oatmeal is one of my favorites for baby-led weaning. You can substitute between 1/4-1/2 of the liquid in your typical oatmeal recipe for canned pumpkin.
Be sure to use canned pumpkin puree and not pumpkin pie mix (that has added sugars that babies can't have). This also works with steel cut or overnight oats but may need to add more liquid.
Pumpkin Hummus
Dry breads and crackers can be a choking hazard for early eaters. By adding a dipper or topper like hummus you can soften things up and lower choking risk.
This recipe contains tahini (sesame seed paste) which can be allergenic; try sesame a few times on its own without reaction before introducing this BLW recipe.
You can always add salt afterward for the non-babies in your household. You can add or subtract the seasonings as you wish; but don't worry about a little bit of chili powder for babies, it is not spicy!
Pumpkin Curry
This is an easy one dish dinner that works for older babies (8m+) who have graduated to combination foods. Use no added salt chick peas or low sodium (rinsing low sodium under the faucet will reduce sodium by approximately 30%). You can also use cooked pieces of roast pumpkin or squash in place of canned if you prefer.
BLW-Friendly Pumpkin Roll
This is a BLW friendly take on the traditional pumpkin roll. You can use the pumpkin "cake" batter and make into muffins or mini muffins if you prefer not to make the whole rolled up pumpkin roll with the filling.
For More BLW Pumpkin Love…
If you’re interested in more info on safely feeding babies pumpkin, check out the episode of my BABY-LED WEANING MADE EASY podcast called “Pumpkin: 5 Easy Ways Your Baby Can Safely Eat Pumpkin” here.
And for more pictures & videos of babies eating pumpkin check out DAY 15 of my 100 FIRST FOODS program on Instagram which is all about pumpkin & you can find that here.
I also featured pumpkin as Day 7 of Baby JoJo’s first 10 days of BLW series & there’s a post about feeding pumpkin to babies and more info on prepping it safely.
To download all 5 of the BLW pumpkin recipes featured in this blog, click here.
Just Getting Started with BLW?
If you’re interested in giving your baby a safe start to solid foods with baby-led weaning, come check out my FREE online workshop called “BABY-LED WEANING FOR BEGINNERS: How to get your baby to try 100 foods before turning one without YOU having to spoon-feed purées or buy pouches!”
Everyone on this free workshop gets a copy of my 100 FIRST FOODS LIST (….1 of which is pumpkin so you only have 99 more to go!) You can sign up for this week’s workshop times here.
