Give your little one the best of Indian cuisine with these Healthy Curry Recipes for Babies and Kids! Includes both vegetarian and non vegetarian options!
We’re all aware of why commercial baby food isn’t a good idea, and that’s why we constantly recommend making your own baby food at home. However, making something different just for your baby at every meal can get exhausting after a while, and most parents wait for the day their little ones can eat whatever the rest of the family is having.
That’s why we recommend introducing spices to babies early – not only does it make them accustomed to our everyday dishes, spices also have many healing benefits. Now once your baby is used to spices in her purees and porridges, it’s time to take her diet to the next level – curry!
So when can your baby eat curry? There really is no set date for this – you can start any time after baby is ready for solids! What’s important is to note the ingredients in the curry – if they are safe for your baby, you’re all set to go.
To make things easier for you, we’ve rounded up some of the healthiest and easiest curry recipes for babies and kids – which are also great for the rest of the family! Please remember that there are certain foods to be avoided for babies under one, especially salt and cow’s milk. In the recipes below, you can skip salt when feeding babies under one – the spices will be enough for flavor.
We recommend making homemade vegetable stock and chicken stock for the curries, so you get maximum flavor without any preservatives. To cook the curry, you can choose the best oil for your baby based on what’s available in your region. Once your baby is ready for meat and fish, you can introduce the non vegetarian curries listed below.
You can serve these curries any way you like, although plain rice would be a good way to start. So are you ready to expand your little one’s diet? Let’s go!
This recipe from Baby Led Feeding is excellent if you manage to get some nice thick chunks of white fish. The curry features Balti masala paste, but you can replace with regular curry paste or skip it all together for a milder curry. The ginger and garlic make it easy to digest and the bell peppers add the requisite veggies!
If you’re a little hesitant to introduce an all out savory dish for your little one, ease the transition with this fruity chicken curry from Healthy Little Foodies. This recipe features chicken along with apple and raisins for a delightfully flavored curry. The carrots and bell peppers also contribute a mild sweetness to this curry.
Many parents are wary of feeding their kids red or orange curries, thinking they’ll be far too spicy for that tiny mouth. If that’s the case with you, Monsoon Spice has the remedy – a mild, white paneer curry, which uses cashew paste and fresh cream for a thick, creamy gravy. With the green peas standing out among all that white, this is a dish that’s also a treat for the eyes!
Kid hankering for Chinese food but you don’t want to order in oily food from outside? No problem, just get some natural noodles and pair it up with this creamy chicken curry from My Fussy Eater! The only sauce in this curry is soy sauce and if you get the low sodium variety, you can make this a healthy dish for the whole family.
Expand your little one’s taste buds by introducing her to different cuisines early on, like with this Thai curry from Sneaky Veg! If you can’t find butternut squash, no problem – just replace with pumpkin. You can make the curry pastes at home and store it so whenever you want to make the curry, you have the ingredients all ready to use.
When we think of chicken gravies from restaurant, we think of all that excess oil floating about. Skip that and opt for a healthy version instead, like this chicken korma from Baby Led Feeding. This also uses a tomato based curry, but the coconut milk neutralizes the spices and the maple syrup adds a hint of sweetness. If you like, you can replace the maple syrup with honey.
People often wonder how to give babies under one curries since they can’t have creamy ones that use cream made from cow’s milk. Contentedness Cooking has the solution – a vegan curry thickened using coconut milk! You can skip the red curry paste and use spices as per your baby’s liking, adjusting the heat. The sweet potatoes and chickpeas make this a filling meal that’ll prevent sudden hunger pangs.
What’s the most common curry made in every Indian home? Dal curry, of course! This recipe from Fun Without FodMaps can be made using any variety of lentils, although we’d recommend yellow lentils for beginners. For young babies, cook the dal well so that it’s almost mushy and forms a nice base. You can replace the jalapeno peppers with red or yellow bell peppers.
This is a lovely chicken dish from Mas and Pas that’ll remind you of the popular Parsi dhansak. With lentils and chicken, this is a protein packed dish, and the carrots add some mild sweetness and lots of extra nutrition. This is a simple chicken curry that can be made in a short amount of time and goes with nearly everything.
If you are a vegetarian household or are thinking of cutting down on meat, your first choice for protein is likely to be lentils and pulses. Chickpeas are a great option since they’re also rich in fiber that improve gut health and regularize bowel movements. Running on Real Food has an easy recipe that combines chickpeas with a variety of vegetables, making this a super healthy dish for babies and older kids!
Once your little one is familiar with eating whole eggs, you must try this yummy curry from Healthy Little Foodies! This curry has a surprise ingredient – dates! The dates add a lovely flavor to the curry, and together with the red capsicum, it helps neutralize the heat of the spices, making it more baby-friendly.
Pumpkin is a great food for babies not only because of the health benefits, but because it cooks fast, is mildly sweet, and is easy to digest. This pumpkin curry from My Fitness Pal also includes tofu for some extra protein, which you can very well replace with paneer. The recipe uses pumpkin puree, which you can easily make from home – this also makes this a good dish for pumpkin haters – they won’t realize it’s there in the curry!
Doesn’t this curry from Vegane Alternativen look soothing and delicious! Yes, while your child may not understand what comfort food means, we can assure you this curry fits the bill! The curry uses bell peppers, carrots and zucchini, but you can use whatever vegetables are available – seasonal vegetables will always be high in flavor and nutrients.
Carolines Cooking features a salmon curry that is pretty basic, using easily available ingredients. Fish cooks quickly, so you can make this curry in next to no time, especially if you already have ginger and garlic prepped and ready in the fridge. Making a paste gives the curry a creamy texture, which is more appealing to younger kids.
Every parent knows the struggle of getting their kids to eat their greens, and they’re constantly looking for ways to sneak it in. Super Healthy Kids has an easy option – spinach curry! This is a super easy curry with lots of spices that give it a good punch without overwhelming the taste buds. The addition of chickpeas and yogurt makes this a good protein option as well.
Yogurt and chicken go very well together in terms of flavor, and yogurt also helps to tenderize the meat making it softer and easier to digest. Bon Appetit combines these ingredients along with a range of healing spices to make a yummy curry. This curry uses ghee, which has many health benefits for babies and kids, and also adds a better taste.
We’re all a big fan of OPOS cooking or one pot dishes – the less to wash up, the better! The Busy Baker understands this and that’s why we have a one pan lentils curry! This curry uses red lentils which are easy to cook, but that’s not all – it also includes carrots, capsicum and spinach. And to think that you can cook the whole dish in one pan!
Palak paneer is one of the most sought after dishes when we eat out at North Indian restaurants or at parties. Now your little one can also enjoy this Indian classic, thanks to this recipe from Happy Veggie Kitchen. You need very few ingredients for this curry, and once you have the spinach paste ready, it’s only a matter of minutes before this is ready to eat! Instead of fresh cream, this recipe uses coconut milk, which adds a nice flavor to the dish.
We Indians are blessed to have access to a variety of dried beans and lentils, and we need to learn to make the most of them. Encourage your kids to have lots of lentils so they get the protein they need to grow. The Curious Chickpea has a curry that features black eyed peas, an ingredient that doesn’t get as much attention as split lentils, rajma or chickpeas! You can use regular curry powder instead of the Jamaican version mentioned in the recipe.
If your little one eats chicken happily but refuses his veggies, My Fussy Eater has an easy idea for resolving this conflict – a hidden veggie chicken curry! Looking at this chicken curry, you won’t believe that it also has a carrot, courgette, cauliflower as well as a red bell pepper! Now that’s what we call killing two birds with one stone!
If you’re a vegan household, you’re likely to be using tofu in your meals, and That Delicious Dish has an easy way to introduce this ingredient to your little one. However, the interesting ingredient here is something you don’t find in curries – ripe mango! The mango, coconut and cashews add a lovely flavor while neutralizing the heat of the spices, making this a great choice for babies and young kids.
Chickpeas are incredibly versatile, they are cooked all over the country and can be eaten by everyone. Modern Honey celebrates this versatility of chickpeas with this curry that uses coconut milk for the gravy. Even though this recipe features canned chickpeas for ease, you can very well soak chickpeas overnight and cook them in a pressure cooker and then proceed to use them the same way in the recipe.
If you’ve ever had Kerala appams and vegetable stew, you’ll know how something very mild looking can be so flavorful and filling! Tickling Palates gives us a recipe for the famous Kerala vegetable stew, a mild curry flavored with pepper and coconut milk. This is a great dish to mix in any choice of vegetables, although traditionally it uses carrots, potatoes and green peas.
Tempeh is not something that most of us are familiar with – it is made from fermented soy beans and is popular in Japanese cuisine. While My Green Passion uses tempeh in this creamy curry, you can easily replace it with tofu or even paneer. Another fun part is the use of peanut butter, which not only thickens the curry but gives it a nice nuttiness. For best results, use homemade peanut butter that’s free from sugar and preservatives.
Chicken tikka masala is probably more popular abroad than it is in India! We love this baby friendly take on the classic Indian dish by Baby Led Feeding which is miles healthier and milder than the original version. This curry also uses a variety of spices in a tomato base curry, but the remaining flavors come from almonds, coconut and yogurt instead of oil and cream.
Source: https://www.mylittlemoppet.com/curry-recipes-for-babies-and-kids/
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