The diet of a child who is already 1 year old is gradually expanding, new dishes are introduced into it, among which are meatballs.
To prepare meatballs, it is recommended to use:
Meat balls with the addition of vegetables and rice are a tasty and healthy food that is suitable for children with a stable chewing reflex. A large number of recipes can be found on the Internet, so you can feed your baby nutritiously and variedly.
Meatballs for children: advantages and features of the dish
Meatballs are optimal for baby food because:
- they are softer and more tender than meatballs due to the fillers (rice, vegetables);
- they are safe for the baby’s stomach because they are cooked without frying, unlike cutlets;
- By eating this dish, the baby learns to chew meat food correctly - this is an important stage in the transition from children's pates to the common table.
Meatballs are prepared in several ways, you can:
- bake in the oven (in sauce);
- stew in the microwave;
- steam in a double boiler or slow cooker.
Food preparation
Although recipes vary in the amount and type of ingredients, it is important to adhere to a few basic principles of food preparation.
- Meat and fish.
A one-year-old baby is not yet ready to chew coarsely ground minced meat dishes. Veal and turkey should be passed through a meat grinder twice, and only when the child becomes confident in handling meatballs can the meat be ground in one go.
Fish and chicken have a more delicate structure; they do not need to be ground a second time. Please note: it is recommended to use a screw grinder rather than a blender, which turns the product into a pate.
If you plan to add rice to the meatballs or cook it as a side dish, you should give preference to round-grain varieties that cook well. Long-grain rice is drier and tougher; it “sticks” the minced meat worse.
In addition, small children do not chew hard rice well and swallow it whole or refuse the dish. An unchewed product is practically not absorbed by the body. Therefore, use short-grain rice and cook it with more water than the standard recipe, so that the product can cook a little longer than usual. If there is excess water left in the saucepan, drain it through a colander.
You can add carrots, cauliflower, zucchini or other vegetables to the minced meat. They make the dish more tender and juicy, as well as more healthy due to the presence of plant fiber and vitamins.
Please note: to prepare meatballs, use only those vegetables to which the baby’s body is already adapted, and they are guaranteed not to provoke an allergic reaction.
Vegetables with a delicate structure are chopped with a sharp knife; peeled carrots can also be finely chopped or grated on a fine or medium grater. You should not use a blender, since your task is to teach your baby to chew pieces of food. When cooking for children under one and a half years old, carrots and onions for meatballs can be ground in a meat grinder along with minced meat - they will be crushed into small pieces.
A standard ingredient that “glues” crushed foods together, preventing the meatballs from falling apart during cooking. If your child is allergic to egg whites, add only the yolk or replace the egg with a small amount of raw potatoes, finely grated.
A minimum of salt is added to children's dishes. Spices are best avoided as they can cause allergies. Hot spices are contraindicated for children's delicate stomachs. If you want to add some spice to the meatballs, add chopped parsley or dill to the minced meat - they are hypoallergenic and beneficial to the child’s body, as they have a beneficial effect on digestion.
Step-by-step photo recipe:
1. First of all, carry out preliminary preparation of the products. Thaw the fish (then rinse under running water and squeeze out excess liquid), and soak the top of the loaf in milk. After 5 minutes, turn the top over to the other side so that it absorbs the milk evenly.
2. Turn the fish fillet into minced meat. To do this, either grind it in a food processor or finely chop it with a knife (the fillet is so tender that when finished, the pieces will not differ from homogeneous minced meat). Place the chopped fish in a bowl, make a hole in the center of the minced meat and beat the egg into it.
3. Mix the fish and egg, then squeeze out the top of the bread and grate it on a coarse grater directly into the minced fish. Stir all ingredients again with a spoon.
4. Salt the minced meat, add semolina flour and stir again. The semolina will swell during cooking and give the meatballs softness and tenderness.
5. Grease the steamer grates with vegetable oil. With dry hands, form fish balls about 3 cm in diameter and place on racks. Try not to lay out the meatballs too thickly: there should be space between them for hot steam to penetrate!
6. Cover the steamer with a lid, set the timer for 15 minutes and cook the meatballs until fully cooked.
7. Wait until the fish balls have cooled to a pleasant temperature and serve to your baby.
Steamed fish meatballs are ready! For the smallest little ones, it’s best to serve them with smooth mashed potatoes, but for older eaters, potato pieces are also suitable. Bon appetit!
Source
Cooking features
The minced meat is mixed with chopped vegetables and rice (depending on the recipe). Balls the size of a small walnut are made from it by hand. To prevent the minced meat from sticking to your hands, grease them with vegetable oil.
A typical serving of meat for a 1-2 year old child is about 100 grams. If you are preparing a dish just for your baby, you can freeze the “unclaimed” meatballs for future use by wrapping them in cling film or foil, or placing them in an airtight freezer container.
In this case, the dish is cooked on its own, without gravy. Steamed meatballs can be supplemented with sour cream or vegetable sauce prepared separately.
Add a little water to a glass saucepan with a lid - you get a version of a steamed meat and vegetable cutlet. You can use sauce instead of water.
To prevent the meatballs from drying out in the oven and becoming tough, it is advisable to cook them in a sauce, choosing suitable recipes.
Allows you to cook meatballs like in a double boiler, if there is a corresponding function. In a multicooker without a steaming option, balls of minced meat, rice and vegetables can be stewed in sauce.
Preparation
1 Soak the bread in water or milk. In the kindergarten technological map for preparing such meatballs, it says to soak the bread in water. But I decided to use my own taste and soaked the bread in milk.
2 We cut the fish well, remove all the bones and rinse thoroughly. We squeeze the fish directly with our hands, especially if it was frozen and there is a lot of water in it. We squeeze the excess moisture out of the fish well so that the minced meat is not liquid. Sauté the onion in vegetable oil until it smells characteristic. Squeeze the bread well to remove excess moisture. Combine fish, onions and bread. We twist the resulting minced meat through a meat grinder, preferably three times. If you don't have a meat grinder, you can use a blender like I did.
3 Beat the egg into the minced meat. And mix well. Afterwards, beat the minced meat thoroughly with your hands. We lift the minced meat in our hand, not too high from the deep bowl, and throw it back into the bowl. It will become more uniform, airy and tender.
4 In kindergarten, meatballs are weighed before being formed. Each cutlet initially weighs 140 grams; after cooking, it weighs approximately 70 grams. I didn’t weigh anything, I took the minced meat with a tablespoon and molded it according to size by eye)))) Now we lightly bread the meatballs in flour.
5 And place the meatballs on a baking sheet greased with vegetable oil. Place the meatballs in an oven preheated to 200C. Let the breading “set” into a small crust for about 15 minutes.
6 While the meatballs are baking, make the sauce, I have two options for preparing it: 1. If you have fish trimmings left, fill them with water and boil a little until tender. We sort the finished fish with our hands, remove the bones and any excess, and return it to the resulting broth. Sauté onions and carrots in vegetable oil, add to the broth and finally add sour cream. Mix the sauce well. 2. If you don’t have scraps, make the sauce using water, add sour cream, sautéed onions and carrots to warm water. Add salt and pepper to taste. Pour the prepared sauce over the browned meatballs.
7 Bake the meatballs with the sauce for another 30-35 minutes.
Serve the finished meatballs with a side dish of your choice, well, mashed potatoes or boiled rice go well with this dish, pour over the resulting sauce. To taste, you can sprinkle the meatballs with herbs. Bon appetit to you and your children!))))
- The benefits of fish for children
- Recommendations and tips for preparation and introduction into the diet
- Fish meatballs - recipe
- How to cook fish meatballs - video
The mother’s task is to provide the baby with a varied and healthy diet. The introduction of complementary foods begins at 6 months. Usually by 9-11 months the child is familiar with almost all products: vegetables, cereals, dairy products, meat. The time has come to introduce fish into the diet.
Basic Recipes
Veal meatballs
- finely chopped minced meat – 300 g;
- boiled rice - 3/4 cup;
- 1 medium carrot;
- medium sized onion;
- 1 raw egg;
- salt and finely chopped fresh dill - to taste.
The balls are formed from a mixture of crushed ingredients and steamed for 40-45 minutes.
Fish meatballs for children
- white fish fillet (cod, etc.) – 300 g;
- rice, boiled until tender – 6-7 tbsp;
- 1 raw egg;
- small bulb;
- flour - 2 tbsp;
- salt, fresh dill to taste.
Make minced fish fillet and onion, add the rest of the ingredients. Steam for 20-25 minutes. If the child is over two years old, the meatballs can be baked in the oven without sauce (placed on parchment paper), but if they are left too long, they will become tough.
Chicken meatballs for children
- minced chicken – 500 g;
- 1 medium sized carrot;
- 1 small onion;
- 2 tbsp. l semolina;
- 25 g butter;
- 1 tbsp. flour;
- 1 glass of milk;
- 1 raw egg;
- salt to taste;
- cheese.
The minced meat is mixed with chopped onions and carrots, raw eggs, and semolina. Meatballs are formed from the resulting mass. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add milk, add flour and simmer, stirring, until thickened.
Place the meatballs in a baking dish (with a lid), pour in the sauce, and sprinkle with a small amount of grated cheese. Bake covered in the oven for about 35 minutes until done. This recipe can also be used to make turkey meatballs for children.
Meatballs with gravy for children can be prepared from any minced meat (fish, poultry, lean meat).
For the gravy you need:
- 1.5 cups boiling water;
- 1 tbsp. flour;
- 1 tbsp. low-fat sour cream;
- 1 tsp. tomato paste;
- bay leaf, salt to taste.
Boiling water is poured into the saucepan, the remaining ingredients are added, everything is thoroughly mixed. Dip the meatballs, lightly fried in vegetable oil, into the gravy and bring the dish to readiness.
You should not follow the recipe exactly, since cooking is creativity. If for the first time it makes sense to keep the proportions and use the prescribed set of ingredients, then in the future you can safely introduce vegetables that your baby prefers or, conversely, foods that you want to introduce your child to.
Dear readers, today we will talk about what meatballs are for children and the recipe for this dish. You will become familiar with the benefits of this food, its cooking features, and methods of preparing food.
Fish meatballs - recipe
If your little one loves and tolerates fish puree well and is already familiar with fish pudding, you can introduce fish meatballs into the diet - an excellent option for both children and adults. Fish balls with rice are well digested by babies 9-10 months old.
Cooking time: 15-20 minutes.
Required Ingredients
- lean fish fillet – 300 grams;
- boiled rice – 100-120 grams;
- egg - 1 piece;
- 1 small onion;
- wheat flour – 2 tablespoons;
- vegetable oil – 0.5 teaspoon.
Cooking sequence
- Rinse the fillets and dry with paper napkins or towels.
- Cut into small pieces.
- Peel the onion, wash it and cut it into 4-6 pieces.
- Pass through a meat grinder or grind the pieces of fillet and onion in a blender.
- Add rice, egg, flour to the mixture.
- Mix well, your minced meat is ready.
- After wetting your hands in cold water, form meatballs from minced fish and rice.
- Prepare a steamer, slow cooker, or saucepan with a strainer for making fish meatballs for kids. Grease the container or strainer you use for steaming with butter (butter will do).
- Place the meatballs.
Benefits of the dish
- When boiling or steaming, the valuable properties of the ingredients included in the dish are preserved.
- It is considered a more tender and soft dish than meatballs. This effect is achieved by the presence of vegetables or rice in the meatballs.
- Their advantages over cutlets are the absence of frying.
- Meatballs, having appeared on the baby’s menu, allow you to go through the adaptation period of transition from semi-liquid food to more solid food.
- You can cook each time with new minced meat or with a new filling - thus diversifying the children's diet.
When my son was just one year old, I cooked him chicken meatballs, which the child devoured on both cheeks. When he got older, he started making it from veal. Today I prepare this dish from different types of minced meat and always with gravy.
Steamed fish meatballs
Fish is an essential part of a child's diet. But while kids often refuse to eat stewed fish in pieces, they, on the contrary, love minced fish dishes. A variety of cutlets, meatballs, boiled or baked meatballs are a real salvation for caring parents! For example, very tasty steamed fish meatballs can be prepared quite quickly and simply. As a result, the baby will gobble up a portion of the fish dish with appetite, and even ask for more!
Ingredients:
A little vegetable oil to lubricate the steamer grate (otherwise the meatballs may stick to them too much).
For meatballs formed from so many ingredients, you will need two “floors” of steamer racks. If your appliance is a single-level appliance, you will need to run two cooking cycles to cook all the fish balls.
Preparing Ingredients
- Fish and meat. Meatballs for a 1-year-old child should not be made from minced meat that has been coarsely ground. Meat with a coarse structure needs to be ground twice, for example, turkey or veal, but chicken and fish need to be ground once.
- Rice. It is necessary to choose cereals with round grains. Long rice remains quite tough after boiling. You should take into account that it will be difficult for the child to cope with such food, it is better to take round rice and cook it a little longer than usual so that it becomes softer.
- Vegetables. It is recommended to add carrots and cauliflower. They add a delicate taste and make the dish healthy. Just don’t forget to use the ingredients for cooking that your baby was previously adapted to. Vegetables are finely chopped or grated on a medium grater; it is not recommended to chop them using a blender.
- Egg. To prepare a dish, this product is used to “glue” the ingredients together. Here you need to be careful if your baby is allergic to protein. In this case, you can add only the yolk, or replace it with a less allergenic quail egg, or use grated potatoes in small quantities.
- Salt. A little is added to the meatballs, but spices are completely contraindicated for baby food.
Meatball recipes for a 1 year old child
Try to make your baby's menu varied, balanced and complete. Prepare fish products twice a week. Try different recipes, watch your baby’s reaction and soon he will eat his favorite dishes with pleasure.
Rabbit meatballs
Rabbit meat is a dietary product with a balanced composition of minerals and vitamins. In addition, it is hypoallergenic and ideal for getting to know meat. To prepare rabbit meatballs you will need the following ingredients.
Turkey meatballs
Turkey meat has excellent taste and beneficial properties for a growing child's body. To make meatballs from the fillet of this bird, use the following components:
Fish meatballs
Fish is rich in phosphorus, calcium, vitamins, acids and fats, which is important for the full development of the toddler. Take low-fat varieties, carefully remove the bones. To make simple fish fillet meatballs for kids, use:
Chicken meatballs
Your baby will really like chicken meatballs, because they are juicy and tender. To prepare this healthy dish you will need:
Cooking features
- When preparing a dish, the ingredients are mixed and small balls are formed, approximately the size of a walnut.
- To prevent the minced meat from sticking to your hands, they are greased with oil.
- A serving of meat dish should be 100 g for children aged one to two years.
- If you use a double boiler for cooking, then in this case the meatballs are cooked without gravy. This dish can also be prepared in the microwave.
- When baking in the oven, it is important to ensure that the products do not become hard or dry out, so it is better to use sauce.
- You can cook in a slow cooker with or without sauce.
Chicken meatballs
Chicken meatballs for children are prepared from:
- eggs;
- carrots - one;
- one onion;
- water;
- chicken fillet - halves;
- salt.
- The fillet is chopped into small pieces, then ground in a meat grinder to the state of minced meat.
- Onions and carrots are peeled, grated or chopped in a blender.
- Fill a saucepan with approximately one and a half liters of water, into which pour vegetables for future gravy.
- Add some salt to the minced meat, add an egg, form meatballs, which are then added to the water with the vegetables.
- The cooking process takes about 40 minutes.
Turkey
- egg;
- 500g turkey meat;
- rice - 200 grams;
- bulb;
- salt;
- half a glass of milk.
- Turkey meat is ground through a meat grinder along with onions.
- Mix with rice, raw egg and salt.
- If your minced meat is thick enough, you can dilute it with milk.
- Balls are formed and sent to the slow cooker. Prepared within an hour.
cooking method
1. Prepare the fish: cut off the fins and head, remove the entrails, wash under running water, then separate the fillet from the spinal bone, remove the skin. Place the bones, head, and fins in a saucepan, cover with water, and place on the fire. Boil the broth for about 45 minutes, then strain through a fine sieve.
2. Place the bread in a bowl and cover with warm water, let it swell, then squeeze out excess moisture.
3. Peel the onion, fry in vegetable oil until soft, then pass through a meat grinder along with fish fillet and bread.
4. Add an egg to the resulting minced meat, add salt, and mix. Wet your hands with water and form the minced meat into meatballs, roll them in flour, place them in a heat-resistant form, after greasing it with butter. Bake the meatballs in an oven preheated to 200 degrees for 15 minutes.
5. Peel the onion and cut into small cubes. Also peel, wash and grate the carrots. Fry the vegetables in vegetable oil until soft, then pour in the fish broth, add sour cream and salt.
6. When the sauce boils, pour it over the meatballs and bake for 45 minutes, reducing the temperature to 180 degrees.
Serve warm, sprinkled with fresh chopped dill.
Bon appetit to your children and good health!
Fish products
Fish meatballs for children are prepared from:
- small onion;
- seven tablespoons of boiled rice;
- eggs (raw);
- 300g fish fillet, for example cod;
- fresh dill;
- two tablespoons of flour;
- salt.
- Minced meat is made from onions and fish.
- Add remaining ingredients.
- Meatballs are formed. The dish is steamed for about 25 minutes.
We use rabbit meat
- rabbit fillet - 300 grams;
- bread - 70 g;
- 100 g rice;
- bulb;
- one egg.
- Bread and meat are ground in a meat grinder.
- The onion is peeled, finely chopped or minced in a meat grinder.
- The rice is boiled until half cooked.
- Add all the ingredients to the minced meat and add a little salt.
- You can cook in the oven at 180 degrees for 35 minutes.
Steam
To prepare you need to take:
- minced chicken - 300 grams;
- boiled rice;
- one egg;
- small onion;
- flour - two tablespoons;
- salt to taste;
- fresh greens.
- Rice is boiled in advance.
- For very small children, you can omit the onion or chop it in a blender. For children over two years old, the onion can be finely chopped.
- Mix all ingredients, add flour if necessary.
- We prepare a steam bath and cook in it, having previously formed the meatballs into small balls. It will take approximately half an hour to prepare.