Vegetables for babies: first veg, bitter greens and refusals

Start early, and include bitter flavors

Vegetables can be among your baby’s very first foods at about 6 months (CDC, NHS). The NHS suggests starting with single vegetables and fruits, and including vegetables that aren’t sweet, such as broccoli, cauliflower and spinach, not just sweeter ones like carrot and sweet potato. This helps your baby get used to a range of flavors and might help prevent fussy eating later (NHS). From 7 to 9 months, the NHS suggests including vegetables with bitter flavors such as broccoli, cauliflower, spinach and cabbage.

There’s no set order. The AAP says there’s no evidence that babies who have fruit first will dislike vegetables, and the CDC says most babies don’t need foods in a certain order.

Expect faces, and keep going

Babies often wrinkle their nose or grimace at a new vegetable. That doesn’t mean they hate it.

• In a study of babies aged 4 to 8 months, those given green beans every day for 8 days ate much more of them by the end (about 94 g compared with 57 g at the start), though their parents often didn’t notice the change (Forestell and Mennella, 2007). Babies naturally make faces at some flavors, and the researchers suggest watching whether your baby keeps eating, not just their expression.
• A US review of 21 studies found that tasting a vegetable or fruit once a day for 8 to 10 days or more is likely to increase how much babies and toddlers aged 4 to 24 months accept it, and the effect may carry over to similar vegetables (Spill 2019).
• The NHS says it can take 10 tries or more for a baby to get used to a new food, flavor or texture.

How to keep offering:

• Offer a small amount, a teaspoon or a piece or two, at meals, alongside foods your baby already likes.
• Let your baby touch, squash and explore it. Eating it is a bonus.
• Don’t force or bribe. The NHS says to go at your baby’s pace and stop when they show they’ve had enough.
• Eat vegetables yourself at the same table. The NHS says babies copy their parents and other children.
• Try the same vegetable cooked a different way: roasted sticks one week, mashed the next.

Older toddlers often go through a picky phase. See picky eating in toddlers and baby refusing food.

Cook hard vegetables soft

The CDC says to cook hard vegetables like carrots so you can easily mash or purée them, and the AAP says most vegetables should be cooked until soft for babies. Both list raw vegetables as a choking hazard (AAP, CDC). The NHS says to avoid hard foods like raw carrot.

The squash test: press a cooked piece between your thumb and finger. If it squashes easily with gentle pressure, it’s ready. If not, cook it longer. See safe food sizes and shapes.

Steam, boil or roast without salt. The NHS says not to add salt, stock cubes or gravy to your baby’s food or cooking water.

Easy first vegetables

Soft-cooked sticks, spears or florets (finger food from 6 months):

• Carrot, parsnip and turnip: peeled sticks, steamed or roasted until very soft
• Sweet potato, butternut squash and pumpkin: soft wedges or mashed
• Broccoli and cauliflower: large soft florets with a stem to hold
• Green beans, asparagus and okra: whole, cooked very soft
• Zucchini and eggplant: soft-cooked spears or strips
• Beet: roasted or boiled wedges (the AAP says it can turn poop, and sometimes pee, red, and that this is normal)
• Bell pepper: roasted soft strips with the skin peeled off
• Potato: soft-cooked wedges or mashed

Cooked and blended or finely chopped (stirred into mashed potato, lentils or pasta):

• Spinach, kale and cabbage
• Mushroom, leek and onion

Each food page shows the safe size and texture for each age.

Small, round and slippery vegetables

The CDC lists uncut cherry or grape tomatoes, whole corn kernels and hard raw vegetable pieces as choking hazards.

• Cherry tomatoes: quarter lengthwise and press flat. See tomato.
• Peas: cook soft and mash or squash flat. See peas.
• Corn: blend or mash cooked kernels well; never whole kernels or corn on the cob. See corn.
• Brussels sprouts: cook very soft, then mash, or quarter and press flat. See Brussels sprouts.
• Cucumber and celery: firm when raw. See cucumber and celery for safe forms.

By age

• 6 months+: mashed or blended vegetables, or soft-cooked pieces about the size of an adult finger, roughly 6–8 cm long and 2 cm wide (2½–3 × ¾ in). Every piece passes the squash test.
• 9 months+: add small soft pieces no bigger than about 1 cm (just under ½ inch) once your baby can pick things up between thumb and finger. The NHS says to move on to mashed, lumpy and finger foods as soon as your baby can manage them. See introducing textures.
• 12 months+: bite-sized pieces of about 1 cm (just under ½ inch) from family meals, still cooked soft. Keep quartering cherry tomatoes and Brussels sprouts, squashing peas, and mashing corn.

Fresh, frozen or canned

Fresh, frozen and canned vegetables all count (NHS). Frozen peas, spinach and broccoli are cheap and quick. Choose canned vegetables in water with no added salt, and check labels on ready-made soups and sauces, which can be high in salt (NHS Healthier Families). Wash and peel fresh vegetables before preparing them (NHS). See feeding on a budget.

How much?

The NHS suggests children have 5 different types of fruit and vegetables a day, and that a child’s portion is roughly what fits in the palm of their hand. Potatoes, yams and cassava don’t count toward that (they’re starchy foods), but sweet potatoes, parsnips and turnips do (NHS Healthier Families).

Under 1, there’s no target to hit: let your baby decide how much to eat, while breast milk or formula stays their main food. See how much should my baby eat.

Dark green vegetables are a source of iron for babies (NHS). See iron-rich first foods. For fiber and constipation, see foods that help with constipation.

Where US and UK advice differs

• Raw vegetables for toddlers. The NHS lists raw carrot and cucumber sticks among snack ideas from 12 months, and says some children who don’t like cooked vegetables will nibble raw ones. The AAP suggests keeping raw vegetables like carrot sticks from children until 4 years or older, and the CDC lists hard raw vegetable pieces as a choking hazard. The cautious choice for under-4s is to cook firm vegetables soft or grate them finely.
• Seasoning. Both say no added salt. The AAP also says fresh foods for babies should be cooked with no added seasoning; the NHS first foods page mentions only salt, stock cubes and gravy. See herbs and spices for babies.
• Order of foods. Neither the AAP nor the NHS sets an order. The NHS suggests starting with single vegetables and fruits, including bitter ones; the AAP and CDC say any order is fine as long as iron-rich foods are included.