Mommy and Me Cashew Dip
Mommy & Me Cashew Dip for Babies, Kids & Adults…
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One recipe, multiple uses! Such a great way to help reduce meal prep burn-out and find ways to provide meals for everyone you’re feeding, babies included.
With a couple of very minor modifications, this Mommy & Me Cashew Dip recipe works well for multiple ages and stages of development - babies, toddlers, school-agers, teenagers, and adults, alike.
Case in point - I brought it to an adults-only dinner party recently as an appetizer dip along with raw vegetables and whole grain crackers and it was a hit!
One dip, so many uses:
A purée for babies
A sauce for cooked vegetables (works for any age)
A sauce for pasta (works for any age)
A spread for toast or sandwiches
When thinned out with extra cashew soaking liquid, it works well as a salad dressing
An appetizer or side dish dip for vegetables, crackers, or bread
When it comes to feeding babies, it’s important to note that regardless of whether you are taking a baby-led weaning approach to starting solids or spoon-feeding your little one, purées are an important texture for all babies to learn how to manage.
This Mommy & Me Cashew Dip is appropriate for babies from about 6 months of age, once babies are showing all the signs of readiness for solid foods.
It’s easy to modify for infants - first, before you add the salt, consider pulling out a portion for the baby. Then you have lots of serving options. You can offer it to a baby as a purée on a preloaded spoon.
Or you can use one of my favorite ways to offer this Mommy & Me Cashew Dip to a younger baby who has few (if any) teeth, which is to serve it in a little bowl along with a hard stick of some sort of vegetable that can be used as a dipper.
Hard sticks of veggies like the carrot pictured above, offer opportunities for babies to poke around inside the mouth with something hard that helps reduce excessive gagging by desensitizing areas inside the mouth and helping create awareness of the structures inside.
Role modeling the process of “dipping” is a fun way for babies to eat and explore new foods and can help create positive associations with mealtimes.
Do note that once your baby has more teeth and can bite off a piece of a hard veggie stick like this, it’s safer to serve them tender-cooked.
Another benefit of this recipe is the blend of herbs and savory flavors, which provide an excellent way to introduce babies and toddlers to new tastes and help expand and widen a little one’s palate, building the repertoire of accepted foods.
For babies 6-12 months, I like to keep the consistency of the purée thick so that it stays on the spoon better and facilitates self-feeding, but you can play with the amount of cashew soaking liquid you add to make the consistency more or less thick, depending on your preferences and needs.
For toddlers and kiddos, I love these Dabbledoo pickers* that make dipping and eating veggies fun! For pickier eaters, incorporating fun elements like these can help young eaters gradually accept unfamiliar foods.
Cashews offer healthy fats, protein, fiber, and lots of vitamins and minerals that are nourishing at any age and stage.
I love using this dip as an infant-safe way to serve tree nuts and keep them in a baby’s diet frequently, which may help reduce the risk of tree nut allergies.
In fact, this recipe comes from my new cookbook, Safe and Simple Food Allergy Prevention: A Baby-Led Feeding Guide to Starting Solids and Introducing Allergens with 80 Family-Friendly Recipes.
The book includes a complete plan for allergen introduction, 8 weeks of baby-led feeding meal plans, a guide to starting solids and baby-led feeding based on the latest research, and 80 family-friendly recipes like this one.
This one-stop-shop resource makes the process of starting solids and preventing food allergies easy, delicious, and stress-free. Grab your copy here!
Babies learn to eat by mimicking and the earlier we can incorporate them into family meals, the faster they learn to eat and accept a wider variety of foods, textures, and flavors.
Dips like these are also great ways to encourage more vegetable intake in toddlers and kids, and your baby will benefit greatly from eating the same foods as everyone else at the table.
When we serve foods with a dip, it gives them a sense of ownership and control over each bite of food, which in turn, increases the likelihood that they’ll eat what you serve. If picky eating is a concern, check out my online course for parents, called, Solve Picky Eating.
And if you’re getting ready to start your baby on solids, or if your baby has recently begun his or her feeding journey and you need guidance on food sizing, balanced baby meals, introducing the top allergenic foods, and making sure baby is getting the important nutrients needed for growth and development during infancy, check out my online course for parents which serves up short videos that walk you through the whole process of starting solids using a baby-led approach.
If you enjoy this recipe, I would be so grateful if you would rate it and leave a comment! The star ratings help my recipes reach more people. Thank you.
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Mommy and Me Cashew Dip Recipe
Mommy and Me Cashew Dip
Ingredients
- 2 cups raw cashews
- 2 cups boiling water
- ⅓ cup fresh dill
- ⅓ cup fresh flat-leaf parsley
- ⅓ cup fresh chives
- 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
- teaspoon kosher salt
Instructions
- Put the cashews in a medium bowl and pour in the boiling water. Cover and set aside for 10 minutes.
- Set a strainer over a large bowl and drain the cashews, reserving the soaking water. Transfer the cashews to a high-speed blender or food processor. Add the herbs, vinegar, salt, and 1 cup of the soaking water and blend until creamy and smooth. Add more soaking water if needed, until the dip reaches a consistency you like.
- For BLF, serve to babies on a preloaded spoon, on a strip of toast, or in a shallow bowl for scooping with hands. For younger babies without teeth, offer a hard stick of raw vegetable to use as a dipper.
- The dipper isn’t meant to be eaten, but rather as a way to get the dip from bowl to mouth while using the dipper to poke around inside the mouth and help increase familiarity with the structures inside—great for babies with an overactive gag reflex! Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 7 days or in the freezer for up to 6 months.
Notes
- Serve to babies on a preloaded spoon or using a hard stick of raw veggie as a dipper. This dip also works well for babies when served with strips of lightly toasted whole grain bread, as a dipping sauce for tender cooked vegetables or mixed into pasta.
- For older kids and adults, serve with sticks of raw vegetables or whole grain crackers for dipping.
Nutrition Facts
Calories
161.15Fat
12.62 gSat. Fat
2.23 gCarbs
8.98 gFiber
1.1 gNet carbs
7.91 gSugar
1.74 gProtein
5.4 gSodium
267.07 mgCholesterol
0 mg
Products in this Recipe
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