baby led weaning

Copycat nurture life Roasted Chicken with Broccoli & Potato Medley

Baby led weaning was intended to make things easier on parents while still introducing little ones to new foods and textures, but I tend to wonder sometimes, is it actually easier?

The easier idea comes from the concept that you can just share what you are eating with your baby with limited modifications. I’ve found that a good majority of the meals I make for my husband and I are not healthy enough for me to want to give to my baby. Not that we are necessarily unhealthy, but most things we eat have added sugars, higher salt content than what a baby should have, or are just not feasible to make into baby led weaning sizes.

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Healthy baby lunch/dinner option

Most parents who have looked up baby led weaning online have found an advertisement for Nurture Life’s easy finger foods meal plan, but the price point is $5.99 per container. Although the roasted chicken is one of their more labor intensive recipes to duplicate, it can still save you a lot of money making it at home. Plus, if you make 2-3 of my copycat recipes, you can make 21 baby led weaning meals in less than an hour!

I recommend making this recipe with my copycat scrambled eggs and sausage and peppers recipes to make the best use out of the ingredients and your time.

I was able to spend under $7 to make 6 meals! and I used the extra ingredients to create two additional batches of other baby led weaning recipes so that my baby can have some variety in the meals he eats. 

This recipe is almost identical ingredients to the original! You can also modify the seasonings as needed for your little one(s).

How to 

I purchased broccoli florets, gold potatoes, sweet potato cubes and frozen grilled chicken strips. The ingredients were about $30, but as I mentioned earlier, I have two additional recipes that are baby led weaning friendly you can make to stretch these ingredients. Plus, this chicken is tasty to put in other family friendly recipes. I used my extra on a homemade pizza and in an alfredo pasta. Find copycat Nurture Life Scrambled Eggs and Sausage with Peppers here.

I only used $6.80 on the ingredients used here.

1. Pierce the bag of sweet potatoes with a fork and place in microwave using the instructions on the bag.
2. While the sweet potatoes cook, take out two small or one medium sized potato and dice it into finger bite sized pieces. I cut the potato into rounds then did 3 cuts across to make strips and 3-4 cuts to make the strips into diced pieces. 
3. In a medium pot, fill it about half way with water and place your potatoes in the water on high heat. Let the potatoes cook in the boiling water. This took about 20 minutes for me. You want to check on them every 5 minutes until they are tender enough to put a fork through them. Once they are done, strain them and let them cool down.
4. Once the sweet potatoes are cooked, put them in a bowl and place in the fridge to cool so that they don’t get mushed when they are placed in containers. 
5. In another pot, or the same one if you want to wait for the potatoes to be done, start on the broccoli. I wanted the organic steam in bag ones, but my store was out so I had to cook these old school. I placed about half of the bag (since I was going to use the remaining broccoli in other recipes) in a medium pot and put about 2 cups of water over the top. I turned it on medium high heat and covered the broccoli. This will cook around 10 minutes but I checked to see if they were soft every 5 minutes. When the broccoli is done, also put it in a bowl and put in the fridge.
6. Cook the Tyson chicken on a plate according to the instructions on the bag. I cooked them for about a minute and a half and placed in the fridge to cool once they were done. I was able to do this while my potatoes and broccoli were still cooking.
7. Once the chicken and broccoli is cool to the touch, cut into small finger sized pieces. 
8. Grab whatever freezer friendly containers you have. I really like the small 4-6oz mason jars and the Wee Sprout baby food jars. Place the chicken on the bottom. Mix in some sweet potatoes and some gold potatoes then top with broccoli. I tried to make the containers about 4-5oz each with about an ounce of chicken, 1 ounce of both sweet potato & potato, and about 1 ounce of broccoli. 

This recipe takes a little more time than my other copycats, but most of the time is hands off waiting for things to boil. If you can find all the ingredients in steamable microwave bags, I recommend this to save time!

Ingredients

• 6oz of broccoli florets (recommend the organic steam in bag kind)
• 2 small or 1 medium organic gold potato 
• 1/3 of a 16oz bag of steamable sweet potato cubes (about 5oz)
• 7oz of Tyson grilled chicken strips
• Thyme & Garlic, if desired
• 

6 healthy baby led weaning meals for under $7!

These last about 3 days in the fridge and up to a month in the freezer!

I was able to fill 6 containers under $6.80! That’s a huge discount compared to Nurture Life. Plus, by making a couple of other meals with the same ingredients, I was able to add some variety in my little one’s baby led weaning journey!