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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.
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Did anyone answer your question Grace? Because I have the same one. The instructions on the back of the box say to place in water for an hour before regular cooking, but if we do this to make the powder we’d need to leave it to dry again first. I’m also not sure if it can be stored if this method is done. Please let me know.
Do you need to wash the rice before grinding? I find store brought brown rice sometimes with little black stones sometimes. We are a rice eating family so for us we wash rice at least once before cooking.
Great, thank your posting is very cool…
You can save the rice powder in an airtight container in the fridge for about 1 week! I imagine it would last longer in the freezer. I’m not sure about canning in the traditional sense of the word.
canning is posible for this recipe? For example in mason jars?
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GREAT AND EASY RECIPE… THANKS A LOT
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how long can you keep the cereal in the fridge for with added breast milk
can I use wild rice instead of brown rice
Hmm I’m not sure. I would think the flour would be ground super fine and would turn into more of a paste than an oatmeal-like cereal. It is definitely worth a try if you already have some on hand!
Can I use Brown Rice flour instead? And if no, why not?
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Hi,
I understood the process, so you don’t use any heat other than the boiling water? But when I tried it, the mixture stays raw. Whereas others do the same process but whisk the flour on low heat so the rice is cooked, I don’t l.ike to do the latter because I feel that many of the vitamins are lost, but your way leaves the rice raw. Am I missing something? Your prompt reply would be highly appreciated!
Many thanks, please continue the great work.