Best baby food cook book

Top 10 Baby Food Cookbooks

Starting Solids

This book is a must-have for parents weaning baby and starting on solids for the first time. It’s loaded with simple, practical recipes and advice. It also does the meal-planning for you! You’ll learn how to put together ingredients, how to explore new tastes and textures and how to deal with feeding problems. From $20, Amazon

The Baby-Led Weaning Cookbook

With more than 130 recipes, this guide can help you feed baby from your own plate, so don’t have to serve separate meals for everyone in the family. $16, Kobo

First Meals & More: Your Questions Answered

This book definitely has the baby food newbie in mind. (We’re talking about you, not baby.) It’s got 50 fuss-free quick and easy recipes, plus tons of tips and helpful hints on what kids should eat and why they should eat it. Moms love it for the advice. Babies love it for the menu! From $25, Valore Books

Cooking for Baby

Here’s a cookbook that will carry you through each stage of solids. Cooking for Baby offers something wholesome, natural and fresh for every eater at each age. From grains and purées to finger foods, you’ll have it all. $20, Williams-Sonoma

The Petit Appetit Cookbook

Psyched about using healthy and all-organic ingredients in baby’s meals? Try this book, written by a mom for other parents who want to shy away from processed, preservative-filled foods. $17, Barnes & Noble

Sage Spoonfuls

We’re loving Sage Spoonful’s mix of cooking-from-scratch and using store-bought ingredients. Perfectly realistic for busy parents! This book gives details on everything from food allergies and nutrition to foods to avoid. Plus, there are hundreds of recipes that baby will love to eat — and that you won’t get stressed making. $25, Sage Spoonfuls

Parents Need to Eat, Too

Author Debbie Koenig’s book is a hilarious reminder that mom and dad need to eat. It’s filled with nutritious, delicious and satisfying meals for adults (that you can make with one hand!) with instructions on how to prep baby’s food from the same ingredients. The best part? Every recipe was tested and approved by more than 100 new parents! $12, Barnes & Noble

Super Baby Food

Take baby from his first bites of solid food all the way through age three with this super healthy vegetarian cookbook. It’s got advice to help you get the most out of the best wholesome foods for baby (whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, veggies, fruits and yogurt!). $5, Biblio

Top 100 Baby Purées

Nervous about making the transition to solids? This book will give you the confidence you need. Divided into sections that give you comprehensive advice on what baby should be eating at every age, Top 100 Baby Purees has informative facts on how to prep and store baby meals. $12, Target

The Healthy Baby Meal Planner

Start your menu planning here! Make your own baby food affordably and easily, and get healthy eating advice from infancy to age three. $4, Amazon.com

Please note: The Bump and the materials and information it contains are not intended to, and do not constitute, medical or other health advice or diagnosis and should not be used as such. You should always consult with a qualified physician or health professional about your specific circumstances.

Plus, more from The Bump:

Baby-Food Making 101 (It’s Easy, We Swear!)

New Parent Feeding Guide

Which Solids Are Safe for Baby?

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9 Best No-Fuss Cookbooks for Babies & Toddlers

When it came to introducing solids to my first child, I was adamant about preparing homemade meals and offering as many nutritious, wholesome, and unprocessed foods as possible. Sure, I took some shortcuts to reduce some time and stress in the kitchen, but for the most part, I prepared virtually every meal from scratch.

While I can appreciate convenient, ready-made baby food, balancing them with wholesome meals made with fresh, quality ingredients was the way I nurtured my kids’ adventurous palates and taught them healthy eating habits from the start.

I found that feeding my babies homemade meals was the only way to offer them a variety of unique flavors—most of which I simply couldn’t find in processed baby foods. Avocado, pineapple, and tropical fruits were among the bigger hits in our household. It was easy to vary the profiles of recipes by adding a variety of dried and fresh spices and herbs.

While I had a bit more culinary adventurousness in the kitchen, starting out with my first child was a little daunting. I turned to some help from baby and toddler food experts, and quickly gained the confidence to create my own recipes soon after.

If you’re just starting out cooking for your baby, or are just looking to mix up your existing routine, here are the nine best no-fuss cookbooks for babies and toddlers to get you started on your culinary journey with baby.

1. The Happy Family Organic Superfoods Cookbook for Baby and Toddler

This cookbook is a fantastic resource for parents with children of all ages who are looking for basic recipes as well as more adventurous flavor combinations. There are more than seventy easy-to-prepare, fresh, and nutritious recipes for children aged four months to three years—most of which contain nutrient-dense superfoods as key ingredients, such as antioxidant-rich berries, protein-packed quinoa, and omega-3–rich salmon, avocado, and chia seeds.

Buy it: Amazon $20.30

Photo: Amazon

2. The Baby and Toddler Cookbook

Packed with ninety easy-to-prepare recipes made with wholesome ingredients, this cookbook offers a fresh and nutritious approach to feeding children from six months to three years with additional tips for making foods ahead, using the freezer to maximum advantage, and making food fun for your toddler. Those looking to further develop their children’s adventurous palates will love the recipes offered in this cookbook.

Buy it: Amazon $14.39

Photo: Amazon

3. Start Fresh

Celebrity chef Tyler Florence’s new baby food cookbook is divided into stages that start with steamed vegetable purees and build up to multi-ingredient meals for one year olds; and beyond that, there are recipes the whole family can enjoy. With sixty recipes that are quick and user friendly, this book will give parents the tools they need to prepare nutritious, unprocessed food that their babies will love to eat.

Buy it: Amazon $24.00

Photo: Urbansitter.com

4. Little Foodie: Baby Food Recipes for Babies and Toddlers with Taste

This playful cookbook helps parents prepare a culinary adventure for the newest eater in the family and covers all the bases from what foods to buy, how to prepare them, how to store/freeze them, and how to feed them to your baby. With a focus on incorporating a variety of spices and herbs, as well as recipes that include international flavors, this is an ideal cookbook for parents who are adventurous in the kitchen and who want to cultivate adventurous palates in their children.

Buy it: Amazon $11.32

Photo: Booktopia

5. Cooking for Baby

The eighty recipes in this cookbook will make preparing delicious, fresh meals for babies and toddlers a breeze—even for busy parents. The recipes are organized by age, with tips on how to introduce super-smooth purees, how to make chunkier foods for the intermediate stage, and how to graduate to toddler-friendly meals and finger foods.

Buy it: Amazon $13.38

Photo: Amazon

6. Sage Spoonfuls

With hundreds of recipes prepared with a combination of made-from-scratch and prepared store-bought ingredients, this is a great resource for busy parents. Inside you’ll also find a variety of tips with details on everything from basic nutrition facts to food allergies, as well as which foods to avoid at specific stages of development.

Buy it: $15.58

Photo: Target

7. Weelicious: 140 Fast, Fresh, and Easy Recipes

With the “one family/one meal” motto, this cookbook focuses on getting kids to eat by paying attention to how their food is prepared and presented—without being sneaky about it. On top of the delicious recipes, there are dozens of tips for creating easy, healthy, and quick recipes that moms, dads, and young children of any age will love.

Buy it: Amazon $18.84

Photo: Amazon

8. Le Petit Appetit

This cookbook is a great resource for parents who appreciate healthy, all-organic alternatives to commercially processed foods, and who are looking to help nurture more adventurous palates and positive eating habits for their children. It not only offers delicious recipes but also nutritional information for each, time-saving techniques, and instructions on how to easily adapt family recipes for younger children.

Buy it: Amazon $12.46

Photo: Amazon

9. Top 100 Baby Purees

Packed with simple, practical advice for the initial stages of weaning, this is the perfect introductory resource for new parents. On top of 100 delicious and healthy purees, this cookbook also features first-month menu planners, tips to help parents encourage their babies to explore new tastes and textures, and answers to questions regarding fussy and messy eaters, allergies, and weight concerns.

Buy it: Amazon $11.46

Photo: Amazon

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The 10 Best Cookbooks for Kids

Your child has already grown up - and you are thinking about interesting activities that you could do together? We invite you to go to the kitchen and try cooking. With any of the books below, you will not only be able to instill a new skill in your child, but also broaden your horizons, and most importantly, become even closer.

1. "Castor Bakes a Pie", Lars Klinting

Somebody, but Castor the beaver knows how to inspire. Following his example (and clear instructions), kids all over the world are trying to grow beans on the windowsill and carefully work with paints. And in this book, a cute and good-natured beaver will teach us how to bake a pie. Here is a step-by-step recipe, and a description of how to organize the process, and beautiful illustrations. You will see, even a three-year-old kid resolutely goes to the kitchen to try himself as a cook.

2. “Cooking with Petson and Findus”, Sven Nordqvist

The stories about the distracted old man Petson and his mischievous kitten Findus are so charming that it is absolutely impossible not to fall in love with them. And so the book of recipes from their favorite characters, children will also like it. The recipes here are grouped by season, and each season begins with a short story about the adventures of Petson and Findus. Each recipe contains another small story from the life of heroes associated with this particular dish. There will even be an excerpt about the famous meatballs :) The instructions are all simple, the ingredients are available, the step-by-step description of the process is detailed. Older children will be able to cook on their own, and for those who are younger, join yourself, the process is exciting!

3. “Mom, give me an apron!”, “Mom, give me an apron! and pencil”, Katerina Dronova

Heartfelt recipe books that the author wrote especially for her son. She explains how to make scrambled eggs, vanilla pancakes and much more in a completely simple and understandable language. In the first book, the recipes are collected according to the principle “from simple to complex”: there is a section “Home Alone” with quick dishes, and there is a section “Attention: guests!” with more complex instructions that will have to tinker with.

The recipes in the second book are divided by season: in the summer we will learn how to bake a blueberry-raspberry pie and make green lemonade, in the fall we will learn pumpkin waffles, in the winter we will make gingerbread, and in the spring we will learn cottage cheese cake. In addition, in the book you can write, draw, color and even cut out: for example, a Nutcracker bookmark, with which we will later mark our favorite recipes. Both books have wonderful pencil illustrations.

4. “What's the neighbor's lunch”, Felicita Sala

“We are all so different” is often heard around. Different nationalities, different traditions, different habits. But what does this mean for a child? The book by the Italian artist Felicita Sala will help to explain the charm of this diversity in a very visual and fascinating way - through food. Our world is a big house in which we live together with our neighbors. From the window of each of our neighbors comes a special smell - the smell of his favorite dish. Señora Leila cooks tomato spaghetti, Mr. Singh tastes his dal with coconut milk, and Mrs. Greenpie bakes delicious mini quiches. And now it's time to go downstairs and have dinner together... In general, a wonderful book that not only teaches you how to cook (and the recipes here are simple and interesting), but also respect other cultures and make friends with your neighbors.

5. Little Chef. Easy recipes for the whole family, by Teri Eleanor

A small but very beautiful book of simple recipes for young chefs. Do you want to have fun with your child and cook something unusual - something that we are used to, rather, order in a cafe? Croque Monsieur in Italian, for example, or chocolate mousse. "Little Chef" will help! Each recipe has notes which of the items the child can do on their own, and in which cases it is worth calling the parents for help.

6. “Pie Science for Children”, Irina Chadeeva

Is your child not eager to cook? Give him this book in his hands, and in half an hour he himself will lead you to the kitchen. After all, inside there are beautiful illustrations, entertaining puzzles and experiments, and most importantly, the secrets of cooking all the most delicious things in the world: truffles, muffins, Potato cake and real chocolate cake! The recipes are written in a simple and accessible language, besides, the book contains a lot of accompanying photographs, very lively and cheerful. An additional plus is a description of safety precautions in the kitchen, as well as many “technical” processes (why milk escapes, how dough is made from flour, etc.). In general, a wonderful book for a great evening with a child and an oven!

7. "We eat like in a fairy tale: Recipes for every day from your favorite children's books", Tatyana Alekseeva

We offer you to add some fabulous magic to the cooking process! Wouldn't the child want to cook the same meatballs that Little Carlson treated him to? And the same orange marmalade that Paddington Bear loves? Or even the gingerbread house from Hansel and Gretel? All the most delicious recipes from all the most beloved fairy tales are now collected in one book. A great tool for joint culinary creativity of children and parents.

8. “Alone at home. Cooking without Mom and Grandmother, Meshcheryakova Publishing House

Another excellent recipe book for young cooks with unpretentious, “homemade” dishes and simple recipes. An older child will be able to master many dishes on their own: various sandwiches, omelettes and cereals. Others will have to be mastered under supervision: there is chicken in the oven, and meatballs in sour cream sauce, and even herring under a fur coat - for true connoisseurs of the classics!

9. “How is the food? A Guide to Tasty and Healthy Food”, Maria Mazur, Alexandra Ulatovska

Not quite a cookbook, but rather an encyclopedia of food. Very accessible and humorous, she tells the younger generation about the principles of a healthy diet, about the delights of vegetables and fruits, and the important habit of drinking water. Such an actual manual will help to navigate the abundance of food not only for children, but also for many adults.

10. "The Secret Life of Vegetables: Funny Stories, Tasks and Experiments", Alena Vodopyanova

Surely you liked this book already by its title – after all, we are talking about funny stories and experiments with vegetables, but what better way to make a child fall in love with healthy foods? A very witty, very exciting, and even beautifully designed edition with a lot of useful information (for example, about proteins, vitamins and fiber) definitely deserves attention. Assess the titles of the parts of the book: "The Case of the Dying Vegetables (investigated by Cherry Holmes and Dr. Tomatson)" and "Vacation in Borschelon". What about experiments? Get ready to dye cabbage leaves and cook purple scrambled eggs!

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8 good books about food for children and parents - "Food"

The world of books about baby food is diverse and inexhaustible. These are books for parents who want to instill in their children a love for a variety of foods and tastes from childhood, and for children who want to feel like home chefs. They can affect both baby food organization systems and cooking technologies for individual dishes, they can be serious and fun, encyclopedic and motivating, containing a lot of text or pictures.

From all this limitless variety, we have chosen eight books that we love ourselves and that our children love. With them, perhaps, you can start building a children's culinary library.

Ali Buzari Ingredients. Chemistry and alchemy of gastronomic creativity»

The book is written for adults, but in a way that any curious teenager can understand. Why stick together pasta? Why are fried potatoes crunchy? How does jelly freeze? Ali Buzari explains the fundamental principles of working with products, talks about the reactions and metamorphoses that occur with proteins, fats and carbohydrates - and he gets it briefly, but very capaciously and clearly. In addition, the book is well illustrated and even looks like a comic in some places.

Buzari proposes to consider this work as a short course on the laws preparation and consumption of food, dissecting water, fruit peel, meat fiber and explaining in an accessible language why it happened this way, and not that way. This is an entertaining chemistry and physics, and after this book, without even looking at the product, immediately you understand what you should or should not add up with and what result you will achieve: “Each substance has its own character, what he can or cannot do, his modus operandi, so to speak. I familiar with all these features: it depends on them what effect it has on us food, and they help me understand cooking. After reading this book, you understand them yourself and be able to answer all the questions that arise.

Buy.

Silver Spoon for Children

"Silver Spoon" - the most important Italian cookbook, first published in 1950 and has gone through dozens of editions since then. "Silver spoon for children "- it is the same, only adapted for the little ones. four dozen recipes written for kids to handle hits Italian cuisine without the help of adults - and at the same time no coquetry with the form and flirting with the choice of recipes. The book is illustrated with bright visual pictures, but it is ideal for children. school age, not younger. True, we must remember that Italian culinary traditions are freer than Russian ones, and you should not be surprised when you stumble upon a recipe fried lamb leg. In addition to recipes, the book contains the necessary rules safety precautions and there is a helpful chapter on Equipment and Cooking Utensils.

The book was published in Russian by the Eksmo publishing house in 2011 and now it is not found in stores, but it regularly appears on Avito.ru. We hope that Eksmo will reissue it.

School meals

An important Soviet book from the turn of the 1950s–1960s. Why do children eat? What do they eat? How to cook it? How are school kitchens? How do oats grow? And how to become a good person? The book begins in the words of Nadezhda Krupskaya: “You know, you need to be simpler, you don’t need to be wiser so that food it was healthy, otherwise we sometimes think, as it were, something fatter, puff something and etc. , but this is not useful for the guys.” Interspersed with poems about the first of September, an article "Accounting of the body" and tables describing how much copper and zinc are contained in a person weighing 65 kilograms, options for a children's menu have been developed here. week, where on Monday it is advised to eat peasant soup, on Tuesday - boiled tongue and carrot pudding, and on Sundays pudding from cabbage. Solid benefit, the body is like the construction of the century, in a healthy body - healthy spirit, and what is most remarkable - all this is not a bit outdated.

The book can be bought on Alib.ru.

Yulia Vysotskaya "Baby nutrition from birth and older"

Like all Yulia Vysotskaya's books, this one is very personal. Articles about complementary foods and gluten are accompanied by photographs of the author's children, the captions under which intelligibly tell how the Vysotskaya family lives, what makes them happy, what and where they eat. You can't think of a better way to start trusting a book from the very first pages. Recipes are divided by age, which is convenient for confused parents who are puzzled over food for very young children and cannot make a choice. Sections are: from 6 to 9months, from 9 to 11, from a year to three, from three to six and beyond the head of the "School".

Buy.

Saida Sakharova Academy of Home Magicians

Miracles happen here every day: people are born out of nothing delicious soups, a simple dress instantly becomes elegant, and kilometers of yarn turn into scarves and sweaters. Scissors serve as a magic wand here, needle, knitting needles, ladle, brush and pencil. On the last Thursday before New year, a few leaves fly into the children's room of the Romashov family, on which the recipe for ice cream is detailed, after which a household fairy Kalinka with red rosy cheeks like Ryazan apples, and their life is already will never be the same. A dozen chapters, divided into months, and dozens of times more useful tips for boys and girls, practically the book "Housekeeping", with stories about the need to help others, with a pattern of blue shorts for the fifth-grader Leka (character of the book), with a detailed recipe for brushwood and so Further. On parent internet forums about the “Academy” they write like this: “I am 31 years old, I first read this book when I was 8-9years and still have it causes complete delight. I so wanted to fly into my window enchantress)))".

In the photo we have one of the old editions of the book, but it has been reprinted more than once, and it is not difficult to buy it in stores.

Rotraut Susanne Berner, Dagmar von Kramm, The Big Town Cookbook

This is a book with illustrations by the winner of the H.C. Andersen Prize, the German artist Rotraut Susanna Berner, the same that she drew the four seasonal books “Gorodok”, beloved by children, where meticulously the life of the townspeople is depicted at different times of the year - here is a dog frolicking in the snow, and here is the same dog lying in the shade under a hawthorn bush. "Big Cookbook" divided into seasons: spring with radish and Easter Bunny, summer - currant jam and pie "Drowned cherries", autumn - walnut pretzels and pumpkin soup, and winter, during which it is advised to cook turnip in curry and Rapunzel salad. Compiled book more intelligibly nowhere, all these are full-fledged serious recipes that are taken not from the ceiling, but collected by a gastronomic writer, nutrition expert and large family mother from Freiburg Dagmar von Kramm. And thanks to the illustrations, it is more looks like a toy, and any girl should dream of this edition, even if Haven't gotten around to cooking yet.

Buy.

Pamela Druckerman French children are not spitting food"

Objective, a fascinating and witty description of the French approach to parenting from an American woman who, by the will of fate, raised her children in France. Why are small Since childhood, the French have been eating everything, and even vegetables hated by some adults? Why are they not acting up, but literally - do not spit food? Why French unofficially considered the main gourmets in the world? All from childhood. Druckerman narrates easily and naturally, it seems, you are reading a cheerful autobiography of an American, for whose move to Paris in gastronomic terms turned out to be a landing on Mars. But by the middle of the book you realize how much useful and practical information is contained in this apparent lightness. In addition to stories about nutrition, the book contains a lot of interesting details about the upbringing of French children in general, and most importantly, the philosophy of happy motherhood runs through the whole story: a mother is not a servant of her child, but a best friend.

Buy.

Alain Ducasse, Paul Neira, Jérôme Lacressonnière "Still. Babies. Just, tasty and healthy"

The book was written by Alain Ducasse, one of the most titled French chefs, together with the popular in France by nutritionist Paul Neira. Their goal was not to create another collection of recipes, and the development of a whole nutrition system for babies from six months, which would allow you to become a real gourmet by the age of three. 100 dishes divided into age categories, seasons, types of products and cover all possible flavors (yes, even bitter), textures and colors that can be inherent in food.