Baby Food Storage Guidelines
As babies get older and transition from milk to solid food, many parents choose to make homemade food. Unleash your culinary creativity and creating a feast for your baby. You can do much in advance by doing the initial prep of pureeing and dividing into portions up front. Then you can freeze it in individual portions and thaw it when you’re ready to use it. Not sure where to start? At Pottery Barn Kids, we’re here to help. Check out some of our food storage ideas and guidelines here.
How Do I Puree Food for My Baby?
The best time to puree is after you’ve cooked it, so that it’s nice and soft. Once you’ve decided which fruit and vegetables you want to prepare for your baby, you’ll want to puree these to a desired consistency. While this is certainly easy to do by hand, many parents use a blender or food processor to ensure an even consistency and texture that their babies prefer. Whether you’re boiling, baking or steaming, make sure you cook the food, before letting it cool a bit and puree mashing.
Storage
How do you store homemade baby food? If you’re making larger batches of baby food, store some in the fridge or even the freezer for later. Baby food can be stored in the freezer for up to three months, meaning that if you’re making a big batch then you can still maintain optimum quality and nutrition retention. For baby food that you’ll be using soon after preparation, fruit and vegetable based foods can be kept in the fridge for up to 48 hours. While you can indeed store food in the freezer for use later on, because of the formation of water crystals that tend to build up with baby food purees, and the fact that nutrients may evaporate on thawing from these crystals, shorter is often better to really maintain optimum nutrition and freshness. edit this sentence–it’s too long and a tad confusing. In terms of keeping it out anywhere, your best is often in the fridge rather than the counter. If you are going to be out and about with your baby, you can keep food in a small cooler that you can pop into your diaper bag or stroller compartment.
In terms of freezing baby food containers, many parents find ice cube trays to be convenient. If you want to really ensure freshness, start by using the trays to get a number of small portions. Once they’re frozen solid, transfer them to either airtight covered containers or sealed bags to reduce crystallization and to keep them as fresh as possible. If you’re preparing and freezing various types of food at once and then storing them in the freezer in plastic bags, label the bags so you know what you’re taking out.
Heating and Thawing
Many parents wonder how to thaw frozen baby food. When thawing baby food, take out only as much food from the freezer that you’ll need either immediately or within the next 1-2 days You shouldn’t re-freeze food after you’ve thawed it. The only exception here is when you are using frozen vegetables to make the baby food; frozen vegetables and fruit are not cooked prior to being frozen and can safely be frozen again after cooking. There are a number of ways to thaw baby food: overnight in the refrigerator, in the microwave, stove top or the water submersion method.
To thaw food in the fridge, wither transfer it from the freezer to fridge or leave it out overnight. It should be mostly thawed and ready to go in the morning. If using the microwave, transfer the food to a glass bowl and use the defrost setting on your microwave. Don’t forget to stir well once you remove the food from the microwave to avoid any hot pockets that may have formed. If you don’t want to use the microwave, the stove top is easy as well. Finally, the submersion method– thawing the food in a larger bowl of hot water–is another easy method that takes about 10-20 minutes. So how long can you keep baby food out? To avoid any bacteria or contamination, it’s always best not to expose and thaw food out on the counter and to use one of the methods above. It’s also best not to leave baby food at room temperature for more than two hours when you’re feeding your baby.