With all methods...
...You should prepare your homemade baby food, then cool it as quickly as possible to prevent the growth of bacteria. Any food left sitting at room temperature for more than two hours is not safe for your baby to eat and should be discarded.
To cool prepared baby food quickly, try spreading it in a shallow container - you can even sit the container in a pan of cold water, which really helps speed up the process.
How To Freeze Baby Food - Method 1
Thoroughly clean a regular ice-cube tray and spoon your prepared baby food into each section. A lidded tray is ideal, as it protects the food from freezer burn or from picking up any other odours from the freezer. If you don't have a lidded tray, you can cover the tray with food-safe plastic wrap. Some people use foil, although we don't recommend it as you can find that some pieces of foil remain in the food!
Place the ice-cube tray into the freezer and - once the cubes are firm - press them out and place them into zip-top bags, which take up less space in your freezer.
This gives you perfectly sized little portions of baby food - usually around an ounce or so. One cube per meal may be enough for your child at first, but as he grows you may wish to place two cubes in each zip-top bag.
You can also make lots of different baby food flavours by mixing and matching different fruit and veggie cubes - combining a cube of pureed apple with a cube of pureed carrot, for example - yum!
ARE PLASTIC ICE CUBE TRAYS SAFE FOR FREEZING BABY FOOD?
There have been lots of concerns recently about freezing or heating baby food in plastic containers, because of the possibility of chemicals migrating from the plastics and into baby's foods.
Some ice cube trays are specifically designed for baby food (see below) and are free of these potentially harmful chemicals - but if you want to use a regular ice cube tray, then you might like to try a silicone tray, or even one made from stainless steel (the Tickle Trunk stocks one here).
How To Freeze Baby Food - Method 2
This is similar to method 1, because it involves freezing baby food then transferring it to zip-top bags - but instead of using ice cube trays, you can use silicone mini-muffin pans! Their flexibility makes it easy to pop out the food portions - plus, of course, their use goes beyond the storage of baby food when your little one is older!
How To Freeze Baby Food - Method 3
If you don't have any appropriately sized containers for freezing baby food, then you can use the baking sheet/cookie sheet method (although you'll need a little more freezer space initially).
Just spoon your prepared baby food on to a baking sheet to form little mounds (although please note that this won't work as well if your purees are very runny). Cover the entire baking sheet with food safe wrap (or loosely cover with foil), freeze until firm, then transfer the portions of food to a zip-top bag as before.
How To Freeze Baby Food - Method 4
Another good way to freeze homemade baby food is by spooning it into freezer-safe jars and transferring the jars directly to the freezer. Please note, though, that you should never freeze baby food in glass jars unless the manufacturers of the jars specifically state that it is safe to do so.
Jars that are safe to use in the freezer should clearly say so on the packaging - other jars (including commercial baby food jars) are usually not strong enough to withstand the expansion of the food that occurs during the freezing process.
This means that the jar may break or - worse - may experience tiny hairline cracks, which you may not be able to see, but which will deposit tiny shards of glass in your baby's food.
Many parents like to use Ball Quilted Jelly Canning Jars
How To Freeze Baby Food - Method 5
Probably the most popular method of freezing homemade baby food is to use 'purpose built' baby food freezer trays or pots - and boy, are there a lot to choose from!
Manufacturers, recognizing the growing trend for parents choosing to make their own baby food rather than relying on commercially prepared alternatives, have come up with a whole range of products designed to make life easier! What's more, these products are free from the potentially harmful chemicals that some plastic trays may contain.
Our Homemade Baby Food Amazon store features some of the best selling containers for freezing baby food, plus some other useful accessories for preparing yummy baby food at home...
Making a note of the date will allow you to rotate your baby food 'stockpile' - in other words, you can check that you're using older batches of food before new ones. It will also help you ensure that you use your food within an acceptable time frame (see below for more information).
Equally as important as dating the food is making a note of what's in the container - baby food purees tend to look very similar to each other once frozen!
If you discover that your baby is allergic to a certain food - or if a particular food seems to trigger any type of digestive upset - then having the ability to go through your frozen food supply and identify then remove any 'offending' portions is crucial.
The method you use to label your food depends on the method you chose to freeze it. Some 'purpose built' baby food containers come with a writeable surface, whereas others may require you to affix your own label.
If you've chosen to freeze your baby food in zip-top bags, use the ones designed for the freezer, which usually have a surface you can write on.
HOW LONG CAN I STORE BABY FOOD IN THE FREEZER?
If your freezer is operating efficiently, most types of baby food will be good for up to 3 months.
That being said, we recommend trying to use your baby food within 1 month, before the taste of the food and its nutritional value may begin to decline.
To ensure the best quality of your frozen baby food, place it in the COLDEST part of the freezer - this tends to be the top shelf in upright freezers and the bottom section of chest freezers.
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