Beet puree recipe. Beetroot for children: beneficial properties, recommendations for use, recipes

Beets are one of the healthiest and most affordable vegetables. Most of the vitamins it contains are retained even after heat treatment. It normalizes digestion, helping to shed extra pounds. Nutritionists recommend including this product in the daily menu, but the list of dishes with this vegetable in the cookbooks of many housewives is not very large. Even if you introduce them all into your diet, they will soon get boring. Beetroot soup will help add variety. There are many recipes for this dish, which has a delicate creamy consistency and appetizing flavor. The taste of soups depends greatly on what other products are included. Everyone can find an option to their liking.

Cooking features

Beetroot soup is prepared according to the same principle as most other cream soups, but the technology for its preparation has some specific features.

• Beets take a long time to cook, so they are usually boiled, stewed or baked before adding to the soup, and the remaining vegetables are cooked in parallel.
• To ensure that beetroot soup has an appetizing color, vinegar or lemon juice is added to the beets when stewing or sautéing: the acid helps preserve the rich color of this vegetable.
• Beetroot soup can be cooked either in water or in meat broth.
• Adding tart apples to the soup helps balance out the sweet flavor of the beets. A harmonious combination with it is garlic and ginger.
• Cream, sour cream, butter, and cheese will give the soup a delicate creamy taste. Often these ingredients are added at the last stage of cooking. After introducing the last ingredient or chopping the ingredients with a blender, the soup must be brought to a boil and boiled for 2 minutes. This allows the dish to be sanitized.
• Adding potatoes helps thicken the beet soup.
• A blender will be a good helper in preparing beet soup. However, you can make creamy soup without using kitchen appliances: boiled vegetables are easily rubbed through a sieve.
• When using an immersion blender, do not forget that if you immerse it in soup or remove it from it while it is on, splashes will begin to fly in all directions. They can burn and stain surrounding objects.
• If you use an immersion blender to blend food, the pan should be deep and no more than two-thirds full.

Beetroot soup can be served hot or chilled. Croutons would be a good addition to it. You can sprinkle the dish with fresh herbs, grated cheese, and decorate with whipped cream.

A simple beetroot soup recipe

• beets – 0.5 kg;
• potatoes – 0.5 kg;
• red onion – 100 g;
• wine vinegar (6 percent) – 20 ml;
• water or broth - 1.5 l;
• butter – 30 g;
• sour cream – 100 ml;
• salt, paprika, dried basil - to taste.

Cooking method:

• Wash and peel the vegetables.
• Cut them into small cubes, placing them on separate plates.
• Dilute vinegar in 3 glasses of water or broth. Pour the resulting liquid over the beets. Place on low heat and simmer until soft.
• Melt the butter in a frying pan and fry the onion in it.
• Place the potatoes and onions into the pan with the beets and pour in the remaining broth.
• Cook until the potatoes are done.
• Turn the contents of the pan into puree in any convenient way.
• Add cream, salt, spices, dried herbs. Stir.
• Return the pan to the heat, bring the soup to a boil and simmer for 2-3 minutes.

After dividing the soup into bowls, sprinkle it with dried or fresh herbs. Serve neutral-flavored wheat croutons separately.

Beetroot and carrot soup

• beets – 0.2 kg;
• carrots – 100 g;
• potatoes – 0.5 kg;
• garlic – 2 cloves;
• water or broth - 1 l;
• salt, sour cream - to taste.

Cooking method:

• Boil the beets until tender, cool, and peel. Cut into small cubes.
• Peel the potatoes and cut into one and a half centimeter cubes.
• Scrub, wash the carrots, cut them into circles.
• Place carrots and potatoes in a saucepan and cover with water. Place on the stove and cook for 15–20 minutes after boiling.
• Add beets, wait for the soup to boil again, cook for 5-7 minutes.
• Pour out a little broth to make the vegetables easier to chop. Using an immersion blender, puree them.
• Add garlic and sour cream passed through a press, dilute with broth to the desired consistency. Stir.
• Bring to a boil, cook for 1–2 minutes, remove from heat.

Before serving, it is advisable to allow the soup to steep a little. Serve preferably with garlic-flavored rye or wheat croutons.

Beetroot soup with apple

• beets – 0.3 kg;
• apples – 0.3 kg;
• potatoes – 0.3 kg;
• garlic – 3 cloves;
• onions – 100 g;
• sour cream – 100 ml;
• fresh dill – 50 g;
• salt, spices - to taste;
• water – 1 l.

Cooking method:

• Boil or bake the beets until cooked. After peeling, cut into small pieces.
• Peel the potatoes, cut into cubes of one and a half centimeters or a little less.
• Peel the apples and cut out the core. Cut the pulp into approximately the same pieces as the potatoes.
• Peel the onion and cut into small cubes.
• Place apples, onions and potatoes in a saucepan and cover with water. Cook until all ingredients are soft.
• Add beets and continue cooking for 5 minutes.
• Remove the pan from the heat. Pour out a ladle of broth and mix with sour cream. Pour back into the soup pot.
• Add dill chopped with a knife and garlic passed through a press.
• Using an immersion blender, turn the contents of the pan into a homogeneous mass and boil for 2-3 minutes.

The soup prepared according to this recipe has an unusual but harmonious taste. At first it may seem unusual to you, but you will love it very quickly.

Beetroot soup with cream and ginger

• beets – 0.3 kg;
• potatoes – 0.3 kg;
• vegetable oil – 20 ml;
• ginger root – 20 g;
• water – 0.8 l;
• cream – 100 ml;
• coriander seeds – 5 g;
• salt, pepper, dried herbs - to taste.

Cooking method:

• Wash and peel the vegetables.
• Cut the beets into small cubes, potatoes into medium-sized pieces.
• Cover the beets and potatoes with water and cook until soft.
• Heat oil in a frying pan and add coriander seeds.
• Peel the ginger, grate it and add it to the coriander. Fry for a minute.
• Place in a saucepan with vegetables and cook for 5 minutes.
• Turn the soup into puree, add salt, pepper, dried herbs, cream.
• Bring, stirring, to a boil.
• Remove from heat and let sit for 10 minutes.

When serving, you can garnish the soup with whipped cream and add pieces of cream cheese or wheat croutons to each plate.

Beetroot soup is a dietary dish, tasty and healthy. Its creamy consistency is unlikely to leave anyone indifferent. Preparing soup will not take much effort even from an inexperienced cook. If you boil the beets in advance, the whole process won’t take much time either. Having several completely different dish recipes allows you to diversify the family menu.

Beetroot is a very popular vegetable in our latitudes: it is unpretentious, stores well, is inexpensive, has a pleasant taste and a lot of useful properties. Beets, along with, and, are one of the main vegetables on the menu for adults; they are present as the main ingredient in a variety of dishes (first courses, side dishes, salads, appetizers, even in drinks and desserts). But how suitable are beets for baby food and when can they be included in a baby’s diet?

For children, the following beneficial qualities of beets are of greatest importance:

1. High content of dietary fiber - insoluble () and pectin. Dietary fiber stimulates intestinal peristalsis (contractions), promotes the growth of beneficial microflora, and therefore prevents constipation and intestinal dysbiosis, and eliminates existing stool retention. Due to the predominance of pectin rather than coarse fiber, eating beets provides a good laxative effect without accompanying flatulence and cramping abdominal pain. An important property of pectin is that it absorbs and removes various toxic substances from the intestines (salts of heavy metals, toxic metabolic products, etc.).
2. Beets contain a lot of vitamins (, vitamin PP), micro- and macroelements (, potassium, copper). Thanks to them, regular consumption of beets turns out to be useful for anemia, iodine deficiency, and in general has the most favorable effect on a growing child’s body. Moreover, during long-term storage, the vitamins and minerals of beets are not lost; a significant part of them is preserved even after heat treatment. Therefore, beets are excellent for consumption in the winter-autumn period, when seasonal hypovitaminosis is common in children.
3. The coloring pigment of beets, betaine, is a biologically active substance involved in protein metabolism and other important processes.

Beets can be introduced into a baby’s diet from 8 months.

Previously, beets were recommended as a vegetable complementary food from 4–5 months of age. But later the ability of beets to accumulate nitrates contained in the soil was discovered, and in quantities that could cause acute poisoning. In addition, beets, as a brightly colored vegetable, are considered a highly allergenic product. Because of these unfavorable properties, nutritionists and pediatricians recommended limiting the use of beets in infant nutrition or treating its inclusion with extreme caution. For example, it is impossible to find commercially produced canned baby food made from beets alone, although it may be present as one of the ingredients in multi-component purees, juices and ready-made dishes (borscht, soup, porridge).

In fact, the harmful effects of beets are somewhat exaggerated. They can be completely avoided or minimized if you adhere to certain rules for introducing it into the diet of babies. Thus, it occurs relatively rarely on boiled beets (mainly in predisposed children), with approximately the same frequency as on carrots. Well, nitrates are almost completely eliminated by proper cooking of beets.

Introduction of beets into the infant's diet

Pediatricians advise introducing beets into the baby's menu, starting with mashed boiled vegetables. The rules for introducing beets correspond to the general rules for introducing other complementary foods:

• they start giving it with 1/2 tsp. in a day;
• first, beets are included in morning meals in order to be able to assess the child’s reaction during the day;
• the child’s condition is carefully monitored and if the slightest signs of allergy or intolerance to the product appear (loose stools, abdominal pain), beets are temporarily excluded (re-introduction can be tried in 1–2 months);
• in the absence of allergies or intolerance to the vegetable, the volume of its initial portion is increased daily by 1/2 tsp, bringing it to 4–5 tsp. per day (if it is not available, it is enough to give beets 1–2 times a week).

It is more convenient to give beetroot puree not separately, but to mix it with another vegetable that is already familiar to the baby (potatoes, cabbage, carrots). And you should not get too carried away with beets - excessive amounts of beets can lead to diarrhea in a child.

If the baby has persistent constipation that is difficult to treat, it is possible to introduce beets a little earlier - at 5-6 months - as one of the first vegetable complementary foods after zucchini and carrots (but only after agreement with your pediatrician). Usually, to achieve a laxative effect, it is recommended for a six-month-old baby to consume 1–2 tsp. beet puree per day, sometimes doctors advise using 2-3 drops of freshly squeezed beet juice, adding it to boiled water.

But for children with a tendency to allergies, especially to food, it is better to postpone their introduction to beets until a year. It is also not recommended to give beets to infants suffering from frequent diarrhea and the presence of oxalate salts in the urine.

Beetroot for kids

As your child approaches a year, you can offer a larger number of beet-based dishes - borscht (without frying), children's beet soup, stewed beets and vegetable stews with them, boiled beet salads (including vinaigrette), casserole, beet pancakes. However, it is better to continue to adhere to moderation in the consumption of this vegetable: the daily amount of beets for a child under 3 years of age should be about 50 g, from 4 to 7 years - 100 g.

Beetroot juice for children

Despite its many beneficial properties, it is not very suitable for baby food. This is due to the high content of fruit acids in it, which have an irritating effect on the gastrointestinal tract, and the presence of nitrates (since the juice is not heat treated). You should definitely not give your child fresh, undiluted beet juice. Fresh beet juice is allowed for children with a tendency to constipation, but in small quantities (up to a year - starting with a few drops and up to 3-5 tsp, from a year - up to 1/3 cup) and diluted with boiled water or other juice.

How to reduce the amount of nitrates in beets?

First of all, try to use beets from your own plot or buy vegetables grown in environmentally friendly areas. Unfortunately, it is difficult to obtain reliable information about the place and conditions for growing beets, so when purchasing and preparing beets, follow the following recommendations:

1. Choose medium-sized fruits with dark burgundy flesh, without veins - they contain less nitrates.
2. For a child, it is better to boil beets - most of the nitrates contained in them are released into the water. After boiling, immediately drain the water, otherwise nitrates may transfer back into the root vegetable.
3. If you stew beets or use raw grated vegetables for cooking, then first soak the cut beets in water at room temperature to eliminate nitrates (3-4 soaks for 5 minutes each with changing water). When stewing, beets do not need to be covered with a lid, because nitrates come out with steam.
4. If the vegetable was cooked whole, remove the tail and top of the beets - there is a maximum concentration of nitrates.
5. It is advisable to use beet dishes freshly prepared, since during storage nitrates turn into toxic salts (nitrites).

How to properly boil beets?

Beets are cooked for quite a long time - from 40 minutes to an hour and a half, and with such a long heat treatment, a significant part of the beneficial vitamins and minerals is lost. But the time for boiling beets can be reduced if you use simple techniques:

1. Immerse the beets in boiling water.
2. Do not add salt to the water in which the beets are cooked - salt makes the vegetable hard and increases the cooking time. Add salt to the finished dish.
3. Cooking the vegetable can be halved by using the contrast cooling method: after boiling the beets for 30 minutes, remove them with a slotted spoon or spoon (so as not to puncture the skin) and immerse them in very cold, preferably ice water (you can add ice to the water) for 15 minutes . The temperature contrast brings the beets to readiness, and they become soft even after boiling for half an hour.

Beetroot recipes for children

Beetroot puree for babies

Boil the beets. Remove the skin, cut into pieces and beat with a blender. Add 1-2 tsp. beet puree to carrot or zucchini.

Boiled beet salad

Grate the beets on a coarse grater, season with salt, finely chopped dill and vegetable oil.

Salad with beets, nuts and prunes

Ingredients:

• beets – 1 pc. (average);
• peeled walnuts – 1/3 cup;
• pitted prunes – 1/2 cup;
• cream or sour cream - 2-3 tbsp. l.

Rinse the prunes and pour boiling water for 10 minutes, then cut them into strips. Boil the beets and grate them on a fine grater, mix with prunes. Lightly chop the walnuts with a knife (not finely) and add to the salad. Season with sour cream or cream.

Beetroot soup for children

Ingredients:

• beets – 1 pc.;
• potatoes (medium) – 2 pcs.;
• water – 0.5 l (for beetroot) + for boiling beets;
• greens (dill, parsley);
• chicken egg – 1 pc.;
• salt;
• sour cream.

Boil the beets, peel and grate on a coarse grater. Peel the potatoes, cut into cubes and boil in salted water. When it is ready, add the grated beets and after boiling, cook for another couple of minutes. Season the beetroot soup with chopped boiled egg, herbs and sour cream.

The program “About the Most Important Thing” tells interesting medical facts about beets:

Type of dish: Side dish, Breakfast, Salad

Main ingredients: Dairy products, Vegetables

Kitchen appliances:

Theme: Summer

Cooking time: 5 minutes

Number of servings: 1

After I tried making mashed potatoes using a blender, and it turned out great, I decided to try a few more mashed potatoes, only with different ingredients.

This time, beets and carrots were on my table as “test subjects”. Fresh, full of vitamins, they seemed to me the best options for experimentation.

I must say that before the advent of the blender, I did not consider beets and carrots as bases for vegetable puree, I only heard that such puree options exist, but now I wanted to try it - what will come of it? Ingredients:
carrots 500 gr

beets 200 gr

sugar

butter

milk 100 ml

a few slices of wheat loaf

Preparation

I did a simple thing with the carrots - I peeled them (as you know, young carrots do not need to be peeled in the usual way; you only need to “scrape” them a little with a knife to remove a thin layer of peel), then washed them, cut them into arbitrary slices and sent them to stew in their own juice under the lid. You need to add no more than 100 ml of water; to preserve the nutrients, you need to pour boiling water over the carrots. After 10 minutes, the carrots were already boiled, after which I almost immediately pureed them using my Philips HR1616 blender in a couple of seconds (at medium speed, since the carrots turned out to be very soft). This time I used a standard attachment - the attachment for mashed potatoes is designed in such a way that the potatoes do not turn into a sticky mass due to starch (it has a thick knife of a special shape and round holes for potatoes), and in the case of carrots the standard attachment is quite enough .

The next step in preparing our healthy puree is adding milk or cream (I used milk). The fact is that milk/cream/butter, thanks to the fats they contain, contribute to the absorption of maximum nutrients that carrots are rich in. For 500 g of carrots, I added 100 ml of milk, heated the puree on the stove, added 2 tbsp. butter (you can add the same amount of olive oil instead), stir and remove the puree from the stove.

If you like your puree sweeter or are preparing it for a child, you can add a couple of tablespoons. sugar, and if the puree goes as a side dish, you can add a couple of cloves of garlic, 2 tbsp. lemon juice; suitable spices include red pepper, cumin, and turmeric; you can add chopped cilantro. For me, the last step in preparing carrot puree was preparing the croutons - I fried the sliced ​​bread in a frying pan without additives until browned. I read on some forum that carrot puree goes well with such croutons and decided to try it - the combination is really wonderful, especially when the croutons are a little soaked in the puree. This is the puree I got.

It was delicious! Even my boyfriend, who is extremely reprehensible about such dishes, liked it, not to mention the fact that, as he admitted, he always caught carrots even from soup))) By the way, such a side dish is ideal for fried fish or pork chops, in Next time I'll serve it this way...

My second experiment was with beets, which are very beneficial for the body of any child and adult. As in the case of carrots, I peeled the beets, cut them and sent them to stew, adding just a little water so that the vegetable could be steamed and retain maximum benefits. My beets were cooked under the lid until soft for about 15 minutes, then it was time to turn them into puree. Without thinking, I simply cut the beets into circles, quite coarsely, and when I started chopping (I used a standard blender attachment), the thought crossed my mind that I should probably cut the beets into smaller slices after all - but I didn’t have to do this. Thanks to its power, the blender coped with this task perfectly - large slices of beets quickly turned into a puree of uniform consistency. I crushed at the highest speed, and it only took a few seconds! For the same reasons as with the carrots, I used a standard blender attachment to puree the beets. Next, I added a little butter (about 1 tbsp) and sugar (1/2 tsp) to the 200 g beet puree and mixed everything again with a blender for a couple of seconds.

This is the beetroot puree I made.

What conclusion did I draw from my experiment? Such that vegetables can and should be included in the daily diet not only in the form of salads and soups, but also in the form of healthy and tasty purees. With a blender, you can make a beautiful puree from any vegetables that will delight the eye and stomach in a couple of seconds, and the benefits for the body will be invaluable. And the fact that my young man happily devoured the carrot and beetroot puree was confirmation that any vegetable can be prepared in such a way that you WANT to eat it!

1. When consumed regularly, beets will help strengthen the vascular wall and normalize the functioning of the hematopoietic system.
2. Improves digestion, prevents...
3. The high content of various vitamins helps improve intelligence and general physical development.
4. The high content of iodine and iron helps prevent diseases of the thyroid gland and blood.
5. Beets have an immunomodulatory and antioxidant effect.
6. This root vegetable is a powerful hepatoprotector that improves the functioning of the biliary system.
7. Contains betaine. Thanks to him, beets have such a rich red hue.
8. Beetroot dishes are great for children with nervous excitability.

Negative properties of beet dishes

• beets contain nitrogenous compounds, which, passing through the kidneys, can disrupt their function. Therefore, you should not get carried away with beets every day;
• high allergenicity of the product;
• lowers blood pressure (negative effect on low blood pressure).

When should you start feeding beets?

It is better for children with diathesis to start eating beets after a year.

The optimal age when a child can start giving beet puree is 7 - 8 months.

Beets are one of the last to be introduced among all vegetables. This is due to the fact that it causes allergic reactions more often than others.

Beets contain a lot of fiber and have a laxative effect. This occurs due to increased intestinal motility and accelerated movement of feces.

If the baby is breastfed, then the mother can try the beets herself and watch the baby’s reaction.

How to introduce beets?

The best way to introduce beets into your baby’s diet is to give them in the form of a puree. It can be consumed either as an independent dish or as part of complex purees and with the addition of meat. Babies eat especially well homemade mashed potatoes, cabbage and beets.

Add gradually, starting with ½ teaspoon.

Always start introducing a new food in the morning to see if there is an allergic reaction.

1. The beets should be washed.
2. You need to cook it for quite a long time, about 1.5 hours.
3. The readiness of the beets is determined with a knife. If the knife goes smoothly to the middle of the beets, they are ready.
4. After this, the water must be drained.
5. Pass the cooked root vegetable through a blender or meat grinder, then grind through a sieve for homogeneity.
6. Beet puree can be stored in the refrigerator for no more than a day. Therefore, there is no need to do too much of it.

Be sure to add ¼ teaspoon of vegetable or olive oil to the beet puree.

It is better to start introducing beets to your child as part of other vegetables - cauliflower, zucchini. Then, when the baby gets used to it, you can give it as a separate dish.

By 10 - 12 months, if the baby has teeth, you can make beet salads with sour cream, vinaigrettes. Beetroot salad for children will perfectly complement lunch with its pleasant taste.

Prepared salad cannot be stored in the refrigerator for more than a day; it loses its beneficial properties.

By the age of one year, a baby can consume up to 50 grams of beets, but not more than 2 times a week. Children over one year old can be given up to 100 grams. In vegetable salads, beets should be present in up to ¼ of the entire dish.

Boiled root vegetables provide more benefits than raw beet juice. During heat treatment, nitrates are destroyed. This way beets are better absorbed in a small body.

This type of juice should not be given if the child has:

• diabetes;
• tendency to loose stools;
• kidney diseases;
• gastritis with high acidity.

The permitted age for beet juice is 12 months.

Be sure to dilute it with water or other juices. This is due to the fact that beets irritate the mucous membranes of the stomach and intestines.

Beets turn urine pink and stool burgundy. Don't be alarmed if you see these changes in the pot.

Dr. Komarovsky E.O.: “Of course, beets are important in the life of both adults and children. Contains a lot of microelements and vitamins that are beneficial to all organs and systems. Beets also have a pleasant sweet taste, and children are known to love sweets. Buy beets in trusted stores, or better yet, grow them yourself.”

Baby won't eat beets

You cannot force feed a child. This may cause him to have an aversion to nutrition in general. Try “hiding” beets in cottage cheese casseroles, pancakes, cheesecakes, and salads. So the child will not understand the content of beets in the dish.

The children's diet needs to be replenished with new products and tastes. Do it gradually and correctly. Then your baby will be healthy.

A recipe for baby food often includes a combination of fruits and vegetables, for example, carrots and apples, pumpkin and apricots, beets and apples. Doctors recommend recipes with beets for babies from 10 months. At this age, a baby can eat an apple baked (in the form of puree) or raw, grated on a fine grater. Beets are recommended in the form of juice or as beet puree. In addition to vitamins, apples contain iron and are used both as a stand-alone dessert and in recipes with other fruits or vegetables.

Beets are useful for feeding a child because they contain vitamins and microelements, increase hemoglobin and gently solve the problem of constipation in a child. Little ones love the sweet beetroot taste.

Whether it is often worth giving the baby beets (once a week or 3-4) - the mother herself will decide after observing the baby’s reaction, since sometimes the little ones can have an allergic reaction. According to doctors, the benefits of adding beetroot to the diet of preschool children far outweigh the risk of a negative reaction. To avoid problems, you just need to introduce vegetables into your diet little by little and carefully monitor the “response”.

To prepare beet puree for little ones, use not very large root vegetables (“about the size of an apple”). The beets are thoroughly washed, peeled and cut into 2-4 pieces. If it is not possible to use vegetables from your garden, you should, without sparing, cut off the thicker top of the beet (in this case, it is guaranteed that no nitrates will get in). The prepared beets are poured with boiling water and boiled for about an hour, then chopped on a grater or blender.

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Beetroot with apples

Products:

beets (medium) - 1 pc.

apple (medium) - 1 pc.

butter - 15 gr.

sour cream 1 tbsp. l.

salt, sugar

Preparation.

Prepare the beets as indicated above and cook for 40 minutes, then grate them on a fine grater. Wash the apple, remove the skin and seeds and grate it on a fine grater. Then place the apple and beets in a frying pan, add butter, add a little water and simmer the apple-beet mixture for 10-15 minutes over low heat.

Transfer the finished beetroot and apple puree to a plate and season with sour cream. The recipe can be used as an independent dish or as a side dish.

If beetroot puree with apple is prepared for children under one year old, you should not add salt or sugar. For older kids, you can add a little salt and a spoonful of sugar. Do not add sugar to the side dish either.
Ready-made purees for children can be decorated or decorated - this way they will eat more willingly. And if your child generally loves colored foods, try giving him: this is also a very healthy complementary food!