Serving avocado for baby led weaning – recipes and tips

Avocado is a fantastic ingredient for baby led weaning. Read on to find out why it’s such a good food to include in your little one’s diet, along with some recipe inspiration and tips on how to serve so it doesn’t slip straight out of their hands!

Is avocado a good food for babies?

Yes! The NHS suggests avocado as a good early finger food for when babies start weaning (which, in the UK, is recommended to be at around 6 months). However, it can be mega slippy to hold- you can see some tips on helping with that below! 

One of the reasons avocados are a good food for babies is that they contain lots of healthy (monounsaturated) fats. These are really important to support children’s growth and developments. The NHS states that “Young children, especially those under the age of 2, need the energy provided by fat. There are also some vitamins that are only found in fats.” 

I’ve got a whole post all about why healthy fats are important, and ideas for how to increase healthy fats for dairy free babies and toddlers.

Fats are not the only reason that avocados are a good food to include in your baby led weaning repertoire. According to BBC Good Food they are also “an excellent source of… vitamin E, and are a good source of folate. They also supply more soluble fibre than other fruit and contain a number of useful minerals including iron, copper and potassium.”

How to serve avocado for baby led weaning

First things first – however you serve your avocado, you will need to know how to tell if it’s ripe, and how to peel and destone it. If you need some guidance on this, I suggest this how-to guide for all the info you need!

In theory it’s easy to serve avocado cut into finger length pieces which are the right size and shape for an early finger food. However, this can also be very slippery, which – in my experience – can lead to a frustrated baby! It’s OK once they have got a good pincer grip. But not when they are using their whole fist to forcefully grab – the avocado either gets completely squished or just shoots straight out of their grasp.  

Here are a few alternative ways to serve:

🥑 Slice up the avocado and roll it in something that will give a bit of grip – for example, desiccated coconut, breadcrumbs or ground almonds. 

🥑 Mash and spread on toast or on a rice cake

🥑 Puree with a tablespoon of dairy free plain yogurt to make a dip. Perfect for dipping bread sticks and crudites – or just fingers! 

🥑 Mash and mixed in with mashed potato

Top tip – when mashing, add in a couple of drops of lemon juice. The flavour works really well, and it prevents browning.

Avocado based recipes for baby led weaning

The following recipes all use avocado as a main ingredient, and are suitable for baby led weaning and beyond! As with everything on this website, the recipes are free from dairy, egg and soy. If you are weaning dairy free, avocados are a helpful and healthy way to add creaminess to dishes.

Many of these recipes are also gluten and nut free, or have options to make them so. Click through to view each recipe for the full ingredients information.