Top 10 Best Foods for Babies During Weaning

Cream crab is a delicious and nutritious dish, its greatest effect being to effectively treat children's night sweats.

Ingredients:

• Crab: 1kg or more if cooking for a large family.
• Brown rice: 200g, choose the right kind for the best cream crab porridge.
• Sticky rice: 50g
• Dried shallots: 1 bulb
• Seasonings: Cooking oil, good fish sauce, seasoning powder.
• Spring onions, coriander: A little. (Depending on whether the baby likes it or not)

Preparation:

• Soak the crab in rice water, then wash it thoroughly. Put the crab in a pot and boil until the crab shells open. Remove the crab meat, discard the excess water. (To ensure that the crab is clean and does not taste fishy when cooked, soak it with a few slices of ginger and chili to let the crab release all the mud).
• Remove any dirt from the crab meat, wash it clean, and cut it into small pieces. Wash the spring onions and coriander, then finely chop them.
• Sauté the dried shallots in oil until fragrant, then add the crab meat and stir-fry. Season with a little soup powder, then transfer the crab meat to a bowl.
• Put the sticky rice and brown rice in a blender and grind, then soak the rice for about 2 hours so that it will quickly swell and soften when cooked.
• Put the rice in a pot to simmer with the crab boiling water, stirring occasionally to prevent the rice from sticking together and sticking to the bottom of the pot. If the water dries up, add crab water or filtered water and cook until the rice grains swell and become soft. Season with good fish sauce to taste. When the porridge is cooked, add the crab meat and stir well for about 2-3 minutes, then add a little chopped coriander and seasoning powder.

Shrimp and water spinach porridge is an extremely nutritious dish for babies in the weaning stage. This nutritious porridge provides all the necessary nutrients and highly valuable nutritional components from shrimp and water spinach to help the baby develop comprehensively and balanced in terms of physical and mental strength. In these cold winter days, mothers, let's cook this fragrant and nutritious porridge to help your baby become healthier.

Ingredients:

• Shrimp: 5
• Rice porridge: 2/3 cup
• Water spinach: 4 leaves
• Fish sauce
• Vegetable oil for babies
• Coriander
• Filtered water

Preparation:

• Clean and devein the shrimp, remove the shells, and remove the black intestinal tract on the back. Then grind the shrimp finely. Add 2 tablespoons of filtered water to the shrimp and beat until smooth. Doing this will prevent the shrimp from clumping when cooking.
• Wash and finely chop the water spinach.
• Put the pot on the stove, add the rice porridge, add 30ml of filtered water, stir well, and bring to a boil.
• Add the beaten shrimp into the boiling porridge. Wait for the porridge to boil again, then add the water spinach.
• Cook for another 2 minutes, then season with 1 teaspoon of good fish sauce.
• Add some coriander and 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil for babies.
• Serve the porridge in a bowl and feed your baby while it's still warm.

Sweet potato soup is a smart choice for mothers when their children are reluctant to eat, especially vegetables. Sweet potatoes provide plenty of fiber, starch, and various minerals, vitamins such as vitamin C, D,... beneficial for digestion, bones, and provide children with enough energy to perform their daily activities.

Ingredients:

• Large sweet potatoes: 2
• Onion: 1
• Chicken broth: 4 cups
• Seasoning, vegetable oil or butter

Instructions:

• Slice the onion thinly lengthwise.
• Peel and dice the sweet potatoes into small pieces for quick softening when cooked.
• Melt butter or heat vegetable oil in a large pot, add the onion and sauté with a pinch of salt until the onion is soft and turns golden brown, then add the sweet potatoes to sauté together. Season with a little seasoning for absorption.
• Add the chicken broth to the pot with the sweet potatoes, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and let the soup simmer for about 30 - 40 minutes until the sweet potatoes are soft, then turn off the heat.
  Transfer the sweet potatoes to a blender or use a handheld blender to puree. Adjust the seasoning to taste.

Chicken and duck egg porridge is very suitable for infants during the weaning period as it is not only delicious but also nutritious. Duck eggs are similar to rice but have a special aroma and are relatively soft, while chicken meat is sweet and rich in protein and minerals such as phosphorus, niacin, vitamin B6, selenium, and very little fat.

Ingredients:

• Chicken thigh meat: 1 piece
• Duck eggs: 2
• Glutinous rice: 1 handful
• Brown rice: 1 handful
• Green onion, seasoning

Instructions:

• Clean the chicken, boil it until cooked, shred it into small fibers; rinse the glutinous rice and brown rice together, then drain them; clean the duck eggs and beat them, finely chop the green onions.
• Put the glutinous rice, brown rice, duck eggs, and chicken in a pot to cook with the chicken broth.
• When the porridge is soft, add the chicken, simmer for another 5 minutes, sprinkle chopped green onions on top.

Pork and water spinach porridge is a simple yet nutritious dish for babies with fresh, tender, protein-rich pork and fiber-rich green water spinach, which helps keep the baby's digestive system healthy. This dish is very suitable for children who are reluctant to eat vegetables.

Ingredients:

• White rice grains, cleaned: 50g
• Pork loin: 100g
• Water spinach: 1 small bunch
• Seasoning: good fish sauce, seasoning powder, cooking oil.

Instructions:

• Wash the pork, slice thinly, then mince or finely grind with a blender. Marinate with seasoning, add about 3 tablespoons of water to help soften the meat.
• Wash the water spinach, chop finely.
• Put rice and water in a pot to cook porridge according to the ratio of 1:10, which means 1 part rice and 10 parts water. Remember that during this stage, babies will eat more watery porridge than later stages, so the porridge cooking ratio will be 1:10.
• Add the marinated meat and seasoning to the pot, stir well, and bring to a boil.
• Add the water spinach, season again, and cook until the porridge thickens.

If babies are getting bored with typical soups or porridges, mashed potato liver pâté is a perfect choice for mothers. Potatoes contain a large amount of protein that is difficult to synthesize in daily meals, such as lysine, methionine, threonine, and tryptophan. Therefore, adding potatoes daily will provide 50-75% of the baby's energy needs and ensure their growth requirements. Additionally, liver pâté is a rich source of nutrients such as glycogen, vitamins (B1, B2, B6, B12, A, etc.). The combination of these two foods will ensure adequate nutrition for the comprehensive development of children.

Ingredients:

• Potatoes: 40g
• Milk: 3 tablespoons
• Liver pâté: 2 tablespoons
• Egg yolk: 1

Instructions:

• Wash and peel the potatoes, slice thinly, and microwave until cooked. Once cooked, take them out and mash them until smooth.
• Beat the egg yolk and milk, then pour into a small saucepan, stirring constantly to prevent the milk from curdling.
• Once the milk boils, add the mashed potatoes and liver pâté, stir well, and continue to simmer until boiling again.

Perhaps moms are not unfamiliar with traditional eel dishes, however, to provide complete nutrition for babies, people choose to combine them with a little watercress for added fiber and digestive benefits. The preparation of this dish is quite simple.

Ingredients:

• Eel: 50g
• Watercress: 1 stalk
• Rice porridge: 2/3 cup
• Broth: 30ml
• Fish sauce
• Baby oil

Instructions:

• Wash the eel with vinegar, then grind it finely.
• Rinse the watercress thoroughly, chop finely.
• Put rice porridge and broth in a pot to cook, when the porridge boils, add the watercress.
• About 2 minutes later, add the eel, stir well and quickly.
• Add seasoning and baby oil.

Not only does sweet potato provide plenty of nutrients for the body such as vitamins A, B, C, and essential amino acids..., it also has a laxative effect and helps prevent constipation, while greens are also rich in vitamins and fiber. This combination is very good for the child's digestive system.

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons sweet potato
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped greens
• 5 to 6 tablespoons bone broth (chicken feet broth + sugarcane...)

Instructions:

• Peel and wash the sweet potatoes. Depending on the size, you can cut them into 3 or 4 pieces, then boil until tender, and mash with a spoon.
• Remove the leaves from the greens, boil until tender, then finely chop.
• Put sweet potatoes, greens, and bone broth in a pot, bring to a boil for a moment.

Salmon pumpkin soup is a clever combination of two nutritious foods: salmon and pumpkin. Pumpkin is a familiar food in every Vietnamese meal, containing a large amount of vitamins A, C, E, B6, and minerals such as potassium, phosphorus, manganese, and iron. Salmon is also not unfamiliar to Vietnamese people; this type of food is very rich in protein, niacin, vitamin B12, selenium, and essential minerals.

Ingredients:

• Pumpkin: 1 small
• Salmon: 300 gr
• Butter: 2 tablespoons
• Chicken broth: 4 large tablespoons
• Onion: 1/2 bulb
• Seasonings: salt, bouillon powder, fish sauce

Instructions:

• Peel and clean the pumpkin, roast in the oven until soft (you can also boil the pumpkin with a little salt if you don't have an oven). Once cooked, puree the pumpkin.
• Quarter the onion.
• Steam the salmon until cooked, then shred.
• Put butter in a hot pan, when melted add the onion and salmon, sauté until cooked, then add the chicken broth and bring to a boil.
• Let this mixture cool, then put it in a blender and blend until smooth.
• Put a pot on the stove, add the pumpkin and the mixture, bring to a boil.
• Serve in a bowl, sprinkle some chopped green onions on top for garnish.

If your baby is tired of fish or meat dishes, rice straw mushroom porridge is the top choice. This is a simple but nutritious vegetarian dish that provides energy for daily activities.

Ingredients:

• 40g rice
• 100g shrimp
• 100g rice straw mushroom
• Fried tofu: 1 piece
• Dried shallots: 2 bulbs
• Green onions
• Seasonings: fish sauce, pepper, salt, bouillon powder

Instructions:

• Wash the rice, drain, and put in a pot to simmer with 350ml of water.
• Peel and finely chop the dried shallots, divide into 2 portions.
• Clean the shrimp, remove the heads, finely chop and marinate with half of the dried shallots, pepper, and 1 tablespoon of fish sauce for 30 minutes.
• Split the rice straw mushrooms in half, soak in diluted saltwater, then drain. Cut the tofu into small pieces.
• Saute the remaining portion of dried shallots with cooking oil until fragrant, add the shrimp mixture and mushrooms, stir-fry until cooked. Season with seasoning to taste.
• When the porridge is soft, add the mushrooms and shrimp, mix well. Season again. Cook until the porridge is done, then transfer to a bowl, add tofu, and sprinkle some chopped green onions on top for garnish.