A Great Toddler-Friendly Guacamole You’ll Love, Too
While you can easily purchase pre-made guac from a grocery store or get it at a restaurant, the recipe here has additional layers of nutrition and accommodations to the toddler palate, making the effort investment on your end worth it. Use it for avocado toast as a guaranteed winner at breakfast or lunch, or have it serve as a friendly and familiar sidekick for a protein or vegetable your child may not be all that thrilled about.
- 1 large avocado
- 1 clementine or mandarin orange
- Soft cheese (i.e., ricotta or cream cheese)
- handful Edamame
- Cilantro leaves ((dried or fresh))
- Boil a large handful of frozen edamame beans until super soft, roughly 10 minutes. Set aside to cool.
- Unpeel the avocado and remove the green fruit from the core. Add it and the edamame to a blender, along with on generous spoonful of your cheese, some cilantro, and a small pinch of salt. Squeeze out the juice of your orange into the blender jar.
- Blend until smooth. (Note: you’ll likely need to free up the blender blades and/or push shards back into the mix as the ingredients mash, so be ready with a spatula and don’t be discouraged if it takes a few turns of blending before it’s ready to go.)
You can put this -ish on anything: go nuts. Introduce by spooning a bit over bread or crackers/teethers–or your child’s preferred carb-y equivalent–and see how your child takes to it. Once he/she is familiar with the taste and texture, begin to use it as a topping on proteins that your child may be less excited about (i.e., salmon).
You can, of course, at any time strip this back to guac's essence: avo, citrus, seasoning. As our son matures, we tend to favor a more elemental guac when using as a sauce or topping for, say, tacos; when using it as a spread on toast or a bagel, we continue to use this version
Brad (the Dad) is the founder and Chief Recipe Officer of New Dad's Kitchen. His own cooking/feeding journey started humbly during his son's infancy, preparing and managing his son's bottle intake in order to support his wife; it has since blossomed into a full-on passion to feed his child and family delicious and healthy meals that can satisfy both a toddler and his very tired parents.
