Making Baby Food: Mashed Papaya

Papaya is sweet, tasty and packed with folate and vitamin C. The fruit is widely available in tropical countries like Malaysia and Indonesia and considerably cheap. Papaya is quite easy to be processed into simple home-made baby food, such as mashed banana. No blender or other electrical machine is required to make mashed papaya, unless you prefer to steam the fruit first before offering it to your baby.

I made a little bit of mashed papaya to my little foodie and I am amazed with how quick baby Naomi finished her first small bowl of mashed papaya. No fuss and no playing with food in her mouth.

Little foodie enjoying her first papaya.

Mashed Papaya

Ingredients:

1 slice of fully ripened papaya, peeled and seeds removed

Methods:

1. Cut papaya into small chunks.
2. Mash the papaya chunks with fork or spoon in a bowl or grinder bowl. A really ripened papaya should be easy to be mashed with fork or spoon.
3. Feed the mashed papaya to baby immediately to maintain its freshness.

Some parents prefer to introduce papaya as later baby food, so you might want to check with your paediatrician before feeding papaya to your baby.

Need more information and recipe ideas on using papaya as baby food? Check this article out.