Prune Puree Baby Food (Easy First Food)
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This simple recipe for homemade prune baby food puree will quickly become one of your baby’s favorites. Full of healthy antioxidants and dietary fiber, prune puree helps keep baby regular!
Ah, prunes. Prunes get such a bad rap – but they’re actually quite delicious! They’re basically just dried plums – and they look like massive raisins.
When I started solid foods for my kids, around 5-6 months of age, I gave them small amounts of this prune baby food to help keep them regular. You can make just plain prune puree, but I found that with the addition of Fuji Apples, this quickly becomes a favorite puree recipe for most babies!
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This is a super easy to make puree – and you can mix it into oatmeal, yogurt, with other veggies, etc.
Prunes are the number one source of antioxidants for babies and they also help keep things moving along, so if your baby is prone to constipation, a couple cubes of this a day incorporated into your baby’s diet should help keep them regular!
👩🏽🍳 Why This Recipe Works
- Simple homemade baby food recipe
- Healthier than store bought baby food pouches
- No artificial colors or flavors
- Made with organic ingredients
- Easy to store in the refrigerator or freezer
- Sweet with no added sugar
- Babies love it! The addition of apples helps to balance the flavor of the prunes
- Best home remedy for baby constipation
- A natural way to keep baby regular (works for the whole family for regularity too!)
- Full of antioxidants
- Best prune puree recipe ever!
🥘 Ingredients
This baby food prune puree blend uses simple ingredients easily found at your local grocery store!
- Organic Prunes: I recommend using dried prunes with no sugar added (you should only see one ingredient on the package – prunes!), but if you have fresh prunes you can use those too. A prune is just a dried plum, so all of the health benefits of plums apply to prunes too!
- Organic Fuji Apples: You don’t have to include apples in this puree, but I found that it mellows out the flavor and makes it a lot more palatable for your baby. When buying apples, especially for your baby, it is important to get organic. Apples are one of the fruits on the EWG’s Dirty Dozen list of high pesticide fruits and vegetables. Fuji apples are a great choice for this puree. They have a pinkish flesh, white center, and sweet flavor. It pairs nicely with the prunes.
- Water: The added water helps to soften and cook the prunes and apples, and gives this apple prune puree for baby a smooth consistency that baby can easily eat.
📖 Variations
- Mash Or Lightly Blend Into Chunks: If your baby is older, instead of pureeing the prunes, you can mash them or blend until chunky. They can then feed themselves the chunks, and mash with their gums.
- Mix With Breast Milk Or Formula: Before you serve to your baby, stir in some breast milk or formula for added calories and nutrition. Do not add breast milk or formula before freezing or storing in the fridge (as it will spoil) — add it right before serving. If you choose formula, I recommend using one of these best organic baby formulas for the cleanest ingredients, and a close formulation to breastmilk.
- Prune Baby Food Combinations: You can mix baby prunes with all kinds of other fruit blends! Some of our favorites include: A different type of apple puree, or try adding pureed banana, peaches, nectarines, or pear. You can also make this a single-variety fruit puree and just use prunes and water!
- Add New Flavors: If your baby is ready for more flavor, add a pinch of different spices. Try cinnamon, cardamom, pumpkin pie spice, or nutmeg!
🔪 How To Make Prune Puree
Making prunes for baby is actually super easy! Here’s how you do it:
Prep Your Fruits, Add To The Pot: Wash the apples. Cut in half and remove seeds and stems. Cut each half into 4-6 pieces. Remove pits from prunes (or – timesaver: get pitted prunes!). Put apples, prunes, and water into a large pot. Cover with a lid and turn the burner on high.
Cook Until Soft: Cook for 8 minutes until tender, stirring occasionally.
Add To Blender And Puree: Pour everything into a blender, puree prunes and apples (if using) until smooth. For babies 4-8 months, a totally smooth puree is the ideal texture you’re looking for. Once your baby gets older (9-12 months) you can make a chunkier puree.
Store And/Or Serve! Pour the smooth puree into ice cube trays and allow it to cool. Cover/wrap, and freeze.
Note: Thaw this prune baby puree in the fridge the night before use, or thaw by putting the ice cube in a bowl over a bowl of hot water on the counter to defrost.
❓Recipe FAQs
Are prunes healthy for babies?
Yes! Prunes for babies are super healthy. Prunes are dried plums, so like plums they are high in vitamins and nutrients, and also help baby stay regular (1 cup of whole prunes have 12 grams of fiber).
Some of the other health benefits of prunes include: they are an excellent source of protein, fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin B6, potassium, vitamin K, and antioxidants. Vitamin B6 helps the body process protein, while potassium helps to balance fluid levels in the body. Vitamin K contributes to healthy blood, and antioxidants help to fight free radicals.
However, prunes are high in natural sugars, so allow baby to enjoy this apple prune puree in moderation.
When can babies eat prunes?
Babies can start eating prunes as soon as they start on solids, typically around 4-6 months of age.
I generally recommend saving this prune baby food recipe after you’ve introduced a few mild veggies first (like carrots, sweet potatoes, green beans, peas) so that your baby gets used to less-sweet solid foods as their first foods.
This will help to ensure your baby doesn’t reject the vegetables because they don’t taste as sweet. Babies already know sweet tastes, since breastmilk and formula are both naturally sweet! Typically, I recommend giving this apple and prune puree to your baby after they’ve tasted about 4-5 veggies first.
Does prune baby food help with constipation?
Yes, prune baby food can help your baby when they are constipated. Prunes help with constipation because they are high in fiber and they also contain sorbitol, which helps get things moving and pulls water into the digestive tract, which eases baby constipation.
When it comes to how much prune puree for baby constipation, I recommend starting with 2-3 tablespoons of this baby food with prunes first, and increase as needed. If you’re wondering “how long does prunes take to work for constipation?” – typically it will take 12-24 hours for the prunes to take effect.
Note: I like using pureed prunes better than prune juice to ease constipation since it works just as well but won’t typically cause diarrhea the way prune juice might!
Do you have to cook prunes for baby?
Yes, you do need to cook prunes before feeding them to your baby. Prunes are thick and sticky, and difficult to chew. By cooking the prunes, you make them softer, and easier to mash in their gums. I recommend cooking and pureeing your prunes with water so that your baby can easily swallow them.
Are prunes a choking hazard for babies? Can toddlers eat dried prunes?
Pureed prunes are not a choking hazard. But dried prunes are a choking hazard for babies under 1 year of age, similar to how raisins or grapes might be – because they’re sticky and hard to chew.
If your baby is over 1 year of age, and you want to give your toddler dried prunes, I recommend soaking the dried prunes in water to rehydrate them, and then mashing or chopping them into small pieces to reduce any risk of choking.
How to serve baby food prunes?
You can serve this puree on on a spoon, on top of pancakes, mixed with other purees, in yogurt, or even oatmeal!
How do you store prune baby food? Can you freeze prunes?
Yes you can freeze prunes! You can also store this organic prunes baby food in the fridge.
To store in the fridge: Transfer the entire puree to an airtight container and place in the fridge. It will keep for up to 5 days. You can just just scoop out a small quantity of these prunes baby food every time you serve it to your budding eater.
To freeze: Let this healthy prunes puree cool, then transfer to an ice cube tray (or trays), that has an airtight or fitted lid. You can also wrap your ice cube tray in plastic wrap and store in the fridge. Pop out the cubes and thaw in the fridge or warm gently in the microwave or on the stovetop before serving (you want it to be just room temperature so it’s not too hot for your baby).
💭 Expert Tips
- Make a large batch – To save on prep time for your baby’s meals on a daily basis, I recommend using baby food freezer containers or ice cube trays to store these healthy prunes for baby. That way you can make one large batch that will last you and your baby for several months!
- For a smooth consistency – Use a good blender, or food processor to easily blend the fruit puree.
- Use pitted prunes to save yourself time from removing the pits yourself.
- Keep skins on – If you remove the apple skin you will lose some of the fiber and nutrients, so keep the skins on! They will blend easily once cooked down.
- For a store bought recommendation – If you run out of this puree, and have to buy store bought, there are two brands that I recommend: Plum Organics Stage 1 Prunes, and Happy Baby Prune Puree.
🍎 More Homemade Baby Food Recipes!
- 10 Easy Baby Food Recipes for Beginners
- Zucchini and Apple Puree
- Pineapple Puree
- Avocado Puree
- Butternut Squash Puree
- Pea Puree
- Superfoods for Babies and Recipe Ideas
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📋 Recipe Card
🎥 Watch How to Make It
Prune Puree Baby Food
This simple recipe for prune baby food puree will quickly become one of your baby's favorites. Full of healthy antioxidants and fiber, prune puree helps keep baby regular!
Servings: 16 ounces
Calories: 77kcal
Ingredients
- 8 Organic Fuji Apples
- 20 Organic Prunes dried plums
- 8-10 oz water for a thicker puree, use less water
Equipment
Instructions
- Wash the apples. Cut in half and remove seeds and stems. Cut each half into 4-6 pieces.
- Remove pits from prunes (or – timesaver: get pitted prunes!)
- Put apples, prunes, and water into a large pot.
- Cover and turn the burner on high. Cook for 8 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Pour everything into a blender, puree until smooth.
- Pour into ice cube trays and allow to cool. Cover/wrap, and freeze.
Notes
Expert Tips
- Use baby food freezer containers or ice cube trays to store this baby food. That way you can make one large batch that will last you and your baby for several months!
- Use a good blender, or food processor to easily blend the fruit puree.
- Use pitted prunes to save yourself time from removing the pits yourself.
- If you remove the apple skin you will lose some of the fiber, so keep the skins on! They will blend easily once cooked down.
- Thaw in the fridge the night before use, or thaw by putting the ice cube in a bowl over a bowl of hot water on the counter to defrost.
- Spice up your baby’s food! Add a pinch of cinnamon, nutmeg, or allspice to this recipe!
- 1 ice cube = 1 oz of food
Nutrition
Calories: 77kcal | Carbohydrates: 21g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 1g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 2mg | Potassium: 189mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 14g | Vitamin A: 147IU | Vitamin C: 4mg | Calcium: 11mg | Iron: 1mg
Hello, if I make this recipe with just the prunes, do I add less water? Thank you for the help!
Hi Adelina! Yes – if you only use prunes and omit the apples, then use less water. But if you just replace the apples with the equivalent amount of additional prunes, you can keep the water content the same! I always recommend starting with less water and adding more as needed because you can always thin out a too-thick puree, but it’s much harder to make a thin puree thicker! Hope that helps!
Sharing this with all my friends who have babies! Only wish I had had this recipe when I had little ones.
Aw yay! Thanks so much Jess!
I wished I couldve ran into your recipe years ago. I would’ve loved to make this for my kids when they were babies. The pureed prunes wouldve been good to have for them.
Aw that’s so nice of you! Yes I used this recipe a lot when my kids were little for sure!
This prune puree is a great idea and so easy to make! Thanks for the recipe!
Thanks so much!! 🙂
What an easy and inexpensive way to make your own baby food from home! Definitely going to share this with some of my friends who are new moms; great idea!
Thank you so much Sara! I hope this recipe works for your friends’ babies! 🙂
My little one loved this. Thanks for the recipe!
I’m so happy to hear that Katie! 🙂
What a great homemade baby food! Awesome to use dates so they enjoy their flavor.
Adding dates into this would totally taste great!
Love it love it! The apple prune combo is magical and never disappoints – yum.
Yay! So happy to hear that! 🙂
My toddlers would love this combination and I might swirl some into my greek yogurt
Haha! I’ve actually done that – it tastes great – like applesauce mixed with Greek yogurt! 🙂
Oh fantastic idea. Perfect for when I’m babysitting my new niece who has just started on solids.
I hope she loves this puree!
I keep being told to give my baby prunes but didn’t really know how… this is so helpful, thank you!
Oh yes! This is a super easy way to make sure your baby gets prunes but doesn’t reject them outright! 🙂
Great recipe! Did you peel the apples or leave the skin on?
Thanks Amanda! You can just leave the skin on! 🙂
I think it is wonderful that you’re posting homemade baby food recipes. It’s so easy and so much better for our wee ones! You’ve got some great ideas!!
Thank you so much Neve! I hope your little one likes this recipe! 🙂
I saw that avocado was one of first foods…
I know this was an old post… just starting out on this road…
Any advice about the order after avacado?
Hi Deanna! Absolutely! So for our daughter, we did: avocado, sweet potato, pear, green beans, zucchini/apple/carrot, apple/prunes, cauliflower/spinach/broccoli, and then from there we just randomly introduced new foods one after the other! Hope that helps, let me know if you have any other questions!
I love that you are including baby purees! I have made all of my baby food, but my third child is proving to be a little bit pickier than the others so I am having to come up with new ideas and different purees! I love the idea of mixing apples with prunes, we will be trying it this week! Thank you!
No problem at all! I hope your little one loves this puree – it was one of Layla’s favorites! 🙂