Baby Congee

Congee is such a warming and delicious adult food - and babies love it too! I have been making this for months for Leena and it's about time I share my baby soup recipes on my blog!

Baby Congee

1/2 cup brown rice (ideally, soaked overnight or for 6 hours, drain and rinse)

1 cup water

Bring water and rice to a boil. Simmer until rice is just done (if you undercook the rice, it’s perfectly ok since you will continue to cook with the other ingredients)

While the rice cooks, prep the other ingredients: 

1/2 chicken breast, cut into chunks

1 carrot, diced

1 stalk celery, diced

2 cups chicken broth (ideally homemade, or if store bought do low/no sodium)

When the rice is done or almost done, dump all of the above into the pot. Bring to a boil and then let simmer (covered) until the carrots are really tender and the liquid is mostly soaked up by the rice. Usually for the baby food I leave extra liquid because as this sits in the refrigerator it will continue to soak up - which is ok, but to make it palatable for baby, you are going to want to water it down (or broth it down) before serving. One way you can do this is freeze broth into ice cubes and when you defrost or warm this soup, throw one of those in. This dish freezes amazingly well too. 

After everything is cooked, throw in a blender or food processor to make smooth and easy for baby to eat. 

I make this for myself too, but I don’t blend it :) and I add salt (a good amount of salt). So in our house, usually I make this for the grown ups, and before I add salt, I separate some for Leena and cook hers in a separate pot sans salt. 

Feel free to add zucchini, some greens and perhaps a bit of thyme or oregano to change it up.