Making Baby Food in the Crock Pot

My little guy who is 9 months old and loves to eat!

With the price of baby food at over $1 per serving, (even more for the organic varieties) I try to make as much of my own as possible for my little guy. Recently I discovered how easy it is to make food for my baby in the crockpot. I wish someone would have told me how to do this years ago! Here's how I've made baby food in the crock pot:

My favorite veggie to make in the slow cooker is squash. Simply scrub off the squash in cold water, then use a knife to poke holes throughout the skin of the squash.Place in the bottom of a crock pot. Add enough water into the crock pot that it's up to about 1/3 or so of the squash. Put the lid on the slow cooker and then let cook on high heat for about 4 hours or low heat about 7 hours (or until squash is super tender). When the squash is tender, turn crock pot off and let it cool off. Once cool, cut open squash and scoop out the insides (minus the seeds) and place in a blender along with a littl

e of the water that was in the crock pot. Blend until squash is nice and smooth.

Purple Carrots my husband grew in the garden

Another veggie we've done is carrots. To cook carrots in a slow cooker, scrub carrots well in water. Peel carrots and place in crock pot (cut the carrots into slices if you want it to cook faster). Fill the crockpot with water, add lid. Cook until carrots are tender. It took about 3-4 hours on high if carrots were sliced first.

Purple carrots cooked in the crock pot with applesauce frozen into cubes

After you've pure'ed the baby food, scoop into a clean ice cube tray and set in a freezer. After baby food is frozen, pop the food cubes out and place in freezer bags (labeled with what food is and date). I find that one full ice cube tray fits into a 1 quart sized freezer bag.

To serve, thaw 3-4 baby food cubes in the fridge or in the microwave. My 9 month old usually eats 3 cubes worth per meal (which is about 3 ounces).

You can cook all kinds of foods for Baby in the crock pot. We've done apples picked at the orchard and made delicious apple sauce! You can do basically any fruit, veggie, and even add in chicken. The fruits and veggies come out so tender and soft after being in the slow cooker that often times I don't need to do any blending at all. I simply use a fork to mash it up a bit and it's ready for my baby to eat!

It's an easy way to save money and to ensure your baby is eating healthy, especially if you're able to grow some of the food in a garden!

***My husband bought the seeds for the purple carrots through amazon and planted them last spring. He pulled up a few of them in the fall, but they were only a few inches long. He went out into the garden the other day and was surprised to see that the carrots were still growing. He was even more surprised when he pulled them up and saw how huge they had grown! The purple color was really cool and cooked up into a red violet. Here's the link to the seeds he used in case you'd like to try them yourself: