5 Sweet Potato Recipes for Babies

Sweet potatoes are one of the best things you can feed your baby as they start eating solids. (Flickr/Howard Lewis Ship)

Sweet potato is one of the best ingredients to serve your child as a supplementary food to breast milk. You can start introducing your infant to sweet potato from as early as four months old, but it is still a good idea to onlyregularly feed them these recipes when they are at least eight months old. Babies tend to like sweet potato because of it’s naturally sweet taste, while parents will love it for it’s ease to prepare and for being rich in nutrients. Baking the sweet potato is one of the best ways to get the most sweetness from it, but can be quite time consuming. For a less fussy way to prepare sweet potato for you child, try steaming or boiling it. Here are some supplementary breastfeeding recipes you can prepare for your little one.

Baked Sweet Potato Puree

Preheat oven to 200 degrees celsius. Thoroughly wash a medium sized sweet potato. Using a fork, poke all over cleaned sweet potato. Wrap poked sweet potato in aluminium foil and place in oven for 30 to 60 minutes or until tender. Let cooked sweet potato cool, then scoop out the soft flesh. Mix with a few teaspoons of breast milk and mash until the sweet potato has reached puree consistency. The puree is ready to be served.

Steamed Apple and Sweet Potato Puree

Peel apple and cut into small wedges. Using a steam basket, steam both apple and sweet potato until soft to the touch. Combine steamed apple wedges, sweet potato flesh and a few tables of breast milk and mash using the back of a fork. The puree is ready to be enjoyed.

Sweet Potato Mini Pancakes (8 months)

Boil a sweet potato until soft and tender. When sweet potato is tender, scoop out the flesh into a bowl then combine with two egg yolks, 75 grams of flour, and ½ a teaspoon of baking powder, mixing all ingredients until well combined. Add one tablespoons of melted butter and 60 ml of milk, continuing to mix until it forms a thick batter.

On medium heat, cook pancake batter in a medium batter until small bubbles form (one to two minutes) on the surface, then flip pancake, letting the bubbled surface to cook for another minute or so. Pancakes are ready to be served.

Chicken and Sweet Potato Puree (8 months)

Peel and dice a medium sized sweet potato. Cut a 100 gram boneless-skinless chicken breast into small cubes. Cook both chicken cubes and diced sweet potato using a steamer, cooking until all ingredients are cooked (15 to 20 minutes). Place steamed chicken and sweet potato into a blender or food processor  with a few tablespoons of breast milk and blitz to a puree. The sweet and savory puree is ready to serve.

Creamy Sweet Potato Sauce (8 months)

Ingredients

1/2 a small onion (chopped)

1 clove of garlic (crushed)

1 small sweet potato (peeled and cut into cubes)

1/2 a cup of breastmilk

Method

On medium heat, saute the onion and garlic in a little. When onion and garlic are aromatic, add the sweet potato and just enough to cover it all, then bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, then simmer very gently for 20 mins. Cool, then place in a food processor with the milk and blend well. Serve with some cooked pasta or spread on some bread.

By : Rinaldi Herdianto