How to cook one dinner for a baby and everyone else

Take your baby's portion out of the pot before the salt, stock cube or sauce goes in, then season what is left for everyone else. That fixes the seasoning only: it does nothing about the size or hardness of the pieces (see "What about shape and texture?"). Three catalogue recipes have a clean pull-out step, listed below by step number. Seven others do not.

What decides where the pull-out point is?

Anything salty or sweet that goes into the shared pot sets the pull-out point: salt, stock cubes, gravy, soy sauce, cured meats, honey and added sugar. That is the trigger list, not everything to avoid; the NHS foods-to-avoid page in the sources below is the fuller one. The salt rule in the Nourishible safety rules reads: "Added salt is hard on a baby's kidneys. Avoid stock cubes, gravy, soy sauce and cured meats; do not salt cooking water." The NHS Best Start page also lists bacon, sausages and chorizo among the salty foods to avoid.

On honey the NHS says: "Honey should be completely avoided until your baby is 12 months old." On sugar it says: "Your baby does not need sugar or sweeteners." If a recipe puts honey or sugar in the sauce, take the portion out before that step. The reasoning on honey is in when can a baby have honey.

No Nourishible rule or NHS source quoted here covers chilli or black pepper. We have not found a published rule on them, so both stay in the adult pot as a cook's choice. If you want to include them for your baby, that is a question for your health visitor.

How do you find the pull-out point in a recipe?

Read the ingredient list for salt, stock, bouillon, soy sauce, honey and sugar, and for any ready-made sauce, paste or seasoning packet. Find the earliest step that adds any of them. Everything before that step is shared; after it, the adult pot gets the seasoning and your baby's pan carries on without it.

Step numbers are as they appear on each recipe page.

There is no sourced baby portion size here. A small ladle is a starting point for the cook, and your health visitor can tell you how much your baby needs. If that leaves the adults short, scale the recipe up before you start rather than after.

Tomato Egg Udon Noodle Soup

The soup is unseasoned until step 6, when the kombu soup packet goes in "in place of meat broth", and the recipe says the packet "is already salty". Before step 6 the pot holds tomato, mushrooms, cabbage and water, with the scrambled egg set aside in step 1.

1. Ladle your baby's portion into a small pan after step 5.
2. Add the kombu packet (step 6) to the main pot only.
3. Simmer both pots until the vegetables are soft (step 7). The vegetables in your ladle need this too.
4. Return the scrambled egg at step 9, putting some in your baby's pan. The noodles (step 8) are your call, see below.

Udon is made with salt, so taking the portion out before the packet does not make the noodles salt-free. The udon noodle card lists salt among what udon is made from and has no published age guidance. The simplest way round that is to leave the noodles out of your baby's pan. The egg and cabbage cards say what published guidance exists for those.

Chicken Congee (Jook)

Until step 6 the pot holds rice and water. The chicken is marinated in step 4 with oyster sauce, cornstarch, chicken bouillon and water, and goes in at step 7. Step 8 adds a teaspoon of salt, more bouillon and the ginger.

Take the plain congee out after step 6. The chicken stays in the adult pot because the recipe has no unmarinated version, so your baby's portion is plain congee. Ask your health visitor what to serve alongside it. If you keep any congee to serve later, read can you reheat rice first. The chicken bouillon card carries the salt rule.

Creamy Mushroom Chicken Meatballs

This recipe has two pull-out points, and your baby's share needs its own pan.

1. Mince: step 1 mixes chicken, onion, egg, herbs and garlic. Before step 2, which adds salt, black pepper and the semolina that binds the mince, set your baby's share aside. Weigh out 100 g of the mixture so you have something to scale from (a weighing unit, not a recommended portion). Mix in about half to two-thirds of a teaspoon of semolina and leave out the salt and pepper. The basis: the recipe uses 2 to 3 tablespoons of semolina for 1 kg of chicken, which with the onion and eggs makes roughly 1.3 kg of mixture; our arithmetic, taking 1 tablespoon as 3 teaspoons, not a tested amount.
2. Sauce: steps 3 to 6 build onion, mushrooms, garlic, flour, water and sour cream, and step 7 adds salt. Ladle out your baby's sauce after step 6.
3. Fry your baby's meatballs in their own pan (step 8), then simmer them in their own sauce (step 9). Cut one open to check: the FSA says there should be no pink, fleshy meat and the meat should be steaming hot all the way through (FSA: cooking your food).
4. The recipe serves the meatballs over mashed potatoes. Set your baby's potato aside before salt goes in.

That is two extra pans on the hob. If that is too much on the day, the congee is the lighter pull-out.

For binding and mixing, see how to stop meatballs falling apart.

Which recipes have no clean pull-out point?

Of ten catalogue recipes we looked at, seven have no clean pull-out point, because salt goes in at the first or second step in most of them. The ten are a sample, not a ranking. For these, choose a different recipe or cook a separate version for your baby; this guide has no sourced method for seasoning a portion later.

• One-Pot Halal Cart Chicken and Rice: the spice mix in step 1 includes salt and cayenne, and the chicken is coated in it in step 2. Chicken bouillon goes into the rice in step 6.
• Jacket Potato Cottage Pies: step 8 rubs the potato skins with oil, salt and pepper before baking, so the scooped-out flesh in step 10 is not salt-free. The mince filling gets a pinch of salt with the vegetables in step 1, then Worcestershire sauce, tomato puree and 400 ml of beef stock.
• Beef Stew with Mushrooms and Potatoes: the beef is salted in step 2, before it is fried.
• Italian Wedding Soup with Mini Meatballs and Orzo: salt goes into the meatballs in step 1, and the soup is built on chicken stock with another teaspoon of salt in step 5.
• Lemon Thyme Skillet Chicken Breast: the flour that coats the chicken is seasoned with salt in step 1.
• Spicy Sausage and Chickpea Stew: the pork sausages are in the pan from step 3, salt goes in at the same step, and the NHS lists sausages among salty foods.

Easy Shakshuka comes close. Salt does not go in until step 7, but the chilli powder goes in with the paprika and cumin in step 5. If you treat chilli as an adult-pot seasoning, the pull-out point is after step 4, when the pan holds only onion, pepper and garlic. That is a base, not yet a dinner, so the eggs and tomatoes would need cooking separately for your baby.

What about shape and texture?

Taking food out early fixes the seasoning but not the size or hardness of the pieces. The rules that exist are these, quoted from the Nourishible safety rules:

"Cut small round fruits — grapes, cherries, berries, strawberries, cherry tomatoes — into quarters. Cut sausages in half and then lengthways, never into coins."

"Hard raw fruit and vegetables are a choking risk. Grate, mash, steam or simmer them, or cut into slices rather than small chunks."

The NHS also says: "Whole nuts should not be given to children under 5 years old, as they can choke on them." None of these mentions meatballs, noodles, congee or the vegetables in the soup, so there is no sourced size or texture to give for them here. The baby-led weaning safety guide explains gagging and choking, what baby-led weaning means covers the approach, and your health visitor can say what suits your baby's stage.

What else is in these dishes?

Between them these dishes contain egg (the soup and the meatballs), wheat (udon, and the semolina and flour in the meatballs) and cows' milk (the sour cream). The NHS lists egg, foods containing gluten such as wheat, and cows' milk in cooking among the common allergens, and says to introduce them one at a time in very small amounts. If your baby has not had one of these yet, read its card first (the egg card is linked above) and ask your health visitor if you are unsure.

Seasoning the adult pot and serving

Season the adult pot at the step the recipe already gives: the kombu packet in the soup, the salt, bouillon and ginger in the congee, the salt in the meatball mince and sauce. Put your baby's portion in its own bowl the moment it leaves the pot, so nothing from the seasoned pot goes back in. The ingredient cards say what published guidance exists for each food, and where there is none they say so.

Sources

• NHS: foods to avoid giving babies and young children
• NHS Best Start in Life: food and drinks to avoid
• NHS Best Start in Life: food allergies
• FSA: cooking your food
• NHS Start for Life: weaning