Tomato free baby meals

[inomniaparatis]

Can anyone recommend or share their favourite meals for baby/toddler which are tomato free? DD is 13 months and allergic to tomato and most of our dinners tend to be tomato sauce based so I'm struggling! She eats a lot of egg based meals at the moment. I try to give her meat/fish with veg but she's never very keen... Any ideas appreciated!

My toddler hoovers up macaroni cheese and cauliflower cheese.

What about a coconut milk base? My dd loves dahl and it's really easy to add other veg - sweet potato, butternut squash, spinach etc. It's also really cheap and easy to make and freezes brilliantly.

If you fry onions and red peppers, add water and blend you can make a sauce similar(ish) to tomato sauce. You can use in tomato based meals like bolognese, etc.

Cottage pie or shepherd's pie.
Paella
Egg-fried rice - can add whatever meat & veg you like, & just omit the soy sauce.
Carbonara
Pasta with pesto
Frittata

Blended roast veg can replace tomato sauce in most meals. But be careful of Aubergine, my tomato-alergic baby reacted to that too. She’s grew out of both by about 2.

what my kids call 'green sauce' for pasta
super easy just chopped onions and courgettes in a saucepan - softened/ caramelised a bit with olive oil then add water (amount depending on how thick you want the sauce to end up) and a stock cube, garlic S&P to taste cook through until everything is soft (10ish mins usually) and blitz with a hand blender or food processor until smooth, add a couple of spoons of crème fraiche at the end and serve over cooked pasta with loads of parmesan cheese.
My Kids ask for it at least once a week if not more often (ironically my eldest 'hates' courgettes but hasn't yet worked out the key ingredient to 'green sauce' their most favourite meal in the world 😂) Very easy to add any extra protein to this too - Crispy pancetta and chilled chicken go well

*grilled not chilled

My 13 month old loves sweet potato curry, risotto (can add lots of different veg or protein- chicken and butternut squash is nice), sweetcorn fritters, carbonara, pesto pasta, macaroni cheese, stir fry.

Toddler dd loved pesto
cheese sauces instead of tomato sauces. Alfredo, Mac and cheese, etc.

i eat a lot of dishes that use soy sauce, Worcestershire, fish sauce, etc, but those all tend to be higher in sodium so I wouldn’t recommend for a toddler.

she may not be allergic to tomatillos.

watch out for tomato powder. It’s often hidden in cheese sauces or as an ingredient in packaged food. Awful stuff and seemingly everywhere.

Thank you all very much for these suggestions.

Dahl is a great shout, as is risotto. The courgette sauce sounds fab too @Talcott2007 . I think with cottage pie, curry etc I usually add tomato puree but I'll definitely try making those without. She loves a cheese sauce so got that covered!

With pesto, she's not tried nuts yet. She had a bad reaction to kiwi so gp advised waiting until our dietitian referral but that's taken ages. I hope to be able to introduce it soon.

Thanks for the tip about aubergine @YallaYallaaa - DH and I don't like it, so I don't think she's had it yet. Glad to hear your DD grew out of her allergy, hoping for the same here!

@Ponderingwindow thanks for that, will read labels carefully. A lot of the pouches contain a small amount of tomato which is annoying as they're very handy to have in the changing bag!

Agree with a PP who mentioned risotto - I make it with chicken (thighs are cheaper and tastier than breast, and also contain more iron I believe), chopped courgette, peppers and sweetcorn, with any kind of cheese added at the end.

Also tuna pasta bake with peas, sweetcorn and a cheese sauce - one of my top freezer/ store cupboard standbys!

Rebecca Wilson Food on Instagram (used to be What Mummy Makes) has some good ideas too. I like her Hulk Pasta (cheese and spinach sauce - much tastier than it sounds) and courgette pasta sauce.

Never had dahl as I cant have onion or spices. Do you have a recipe for yours please?

There are many tomato substitute recipes out there, but I find it’s easier to just move away from the whole genre and embrace a different style of cooking. The try to seem like tomato recipes never taste as good.

coconut milk is another nice base. I eat a lot of Thai food, but they do use some tomatoes at Thai restaurants so have to be careful there. I would order some dishes really mild and then toddler dd could eat with me.

If you normally add tomato puree to stuff, try substituting a squeeze of lemon juice - it honestly has a similar effect lifting the flavour.

@Ponderingwindow I've never made any Thai food, though I do like Thai restaurants! Do you have any mild curry recipes you'd recommend?

@ZacharinaQuack that's a great tip, thanks.

DD has a few nursery settling sessions coming up in the next week - I think I'll be doing some batch cooking while she's in!

There's some great ideas here. DD was very allergic to tomatoes and citrus fruits. We totally avoided them. About five years later she told me she had accidentally eaten something with tomato in. No reaction at all. She now eats tomato and citrus without problems, so your DC will hopefully grow out of this too.