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Making your own Brown Rice Cereal for your baby is easy, economical, fun and a healthy choice when beginning to transition your baby to solids.
What is Brown Rice Cereal?
Brown rice cereal is a popular breakfast made from pulverized whole grain brown rice. It’s often one of the first solid foods introduced to babies because it’s packed with nutrients and easy to digest. You can buy brown rice baby cereal in the grocery store, but it’s extremely simple and more cost effective to make it at home! All you need is a blender and brown rice — it’s truly the easiest meal you can make for your baby.
Why Make Homemade Brown Rice Cereal for Your Baby
- Nutritious: Packed with iron, magnesium and other vitamins and minerals, homemade brown rice cereal makes a perfect first food for babies. Its nutritional value surpasses white rice cereal, where all the good stuff is stripped out, leaving not much behind.
- Cost Effective: The other awesome part about the homemade version of brown rice baby cereal is that it costs a mere fraction of what you can pay for boxed rice cereal. Why spend all that money on one simple ingredient? Even if you buy the most expensive organic brown rice you can find, per serving you’ll still be paying less than the store bought version.
- Engaging Activity: Whizzing up the brown rice in the blender is a visual stimulant for little ones. I always loved making this recipe when my kids were babies because they were fascinated with watching the blender and it was a great way for them to make early connections about where their food comes from.
- Versatile: You can easily customize brown rice cereal to suit your baby’s taste preferences. Its mild flavor lends itself to be easily transformed when other ingredients are added to it.
How to Make Brown Rice Cereal
- Place the brown rice in a spice grinder or blender for 45 seconds-1 minute or until finely ground.
- To Store: Store the rice powder in a sealed container in the refrigerator or in a cool dark place.
- To prepare 1 serving for a 4-6 month old baby: bring 1/2 cup of water to a boil and sprinkle in 2 tablespoons of the ground brown rice.
- Whisk continuously for 30 seconds, reduce to a simmer and stir occasionally for 4-5 minutes or until the mixture is thick and creamy to prevent any lumps from forming.
- Serve as is or with one of the additions below.
Brown Rice Cereal Additions
Brown rice cereal is a great base for many flavors. Here are some ideas for ingredients to add to your baby’s brown rice cereal recipe:
- Molasses
- Mashed banana
- Mashed raspberries
- Puréed pears, peaches or apricots
- Mashed avocado
- Apple sauce
- Breast milk or formula
With its numerous health benefits, simple preparation and cost-effectiveness, it’s no surprise that many parents turn to brown rice baby cereal when they’re transitioning to solids. Let me know if you have any questions in the comments and tag me on social media if you make this or any weelicious baby foods!
Homemade Brown Rice Cereal
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup short grain brown rice (I like to use organic brown rice)
Instructions
- Place the brown rice in a spice grinder or blender for 45 seconds-1 minute or until finely ground.
- To Store: Store the rice powder in a sealed container in the refrigerator or in a cool dark place.
- To prepare 1 serving for a 4-6 month old baby: bring 1/2 cup of water to a boil and sprinkle in 2 tablespoons of the ground brown rice.
- Whisk continuously for 30 seconds, reduce to a simmer and stir occasionally for 4-5 minutes or until the mixture is thick and creamy to prevent any lumps from forming.
- Serve as is or with one of the additions below.
Any idea how to make the actual flakes like what come in the box? That’s what I need to figure out..
I just blended up my first batch of brown rice for my baby’s first food during our Easter brunch. I used organic brown basmati rice though. Silly question, but does it make a difference which kind?
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So excited to try this! Why have I not thought of it?
After I rinsed the rice, I dry roasted them in the oven at 275 F for two hours before grinding them. It worked well, and the rice cereal has a roasted taste. Hope it helps.
I have heard that rice [white and brown] have natural arsenic, which is why you’re supposed to soak [or at least rinse] the rice before you cook it. Would this still work if you are blending? It seems like if the rice is wet and you try to blend it you will have a sticky mess, but I haven’t tried it yet. Anyone have any suggestions?
That should work just fine!
Can I use long grain brown rice?
hi! thank you for the brown rice cereal recipe…so easy!!! i can’t wait to make it and feed it to my little guy 🙂
Question please! My dh brought brown basmati rice…can use this for my 7 mth old???
do we need to boil the rice powder? Coz, i just buy this kind of rice in the market, on the instructions they said, add a milk only. So, i put EBM in it. Can i do the same, if i made my on rice powder?
An outstanding share! I have just fodrrawed this onto a colleague who has been doing a little research on this. And he in fact bought me dinner due to the fact that I discovered it for him lol. So allow me to reword this . Thanks for the meal!! But yeah, thanks for spending the time to discuss this matter here on your website.
I’m curious about the need to freeze the powdered rice. I’m planning on travelling overseas with a baby and would love to take some pre-ground rice to make into cereal. But I’ll have no way to refrigerate or freeze it. Suggestions?
Trying to find recipies for my 10 month old Grandaughter as I babysit her many times during lunch or snacks.
I used a coffee bean grinder. Worked well took maybe a minute to make into the fine powder.