Beetroot Dip with Chickpeas

4 nutritious ingredients, a food processor/blender, and dippers are all you need for this smooth, creamy, and vibrant beetroot dip for babies, toddlers, kids, and adults!

Sweet, earthy, nutty. It's incredible how flavorful this beautiful dip is! I've been making this since my baby was 8 months old, and it continues to remain one of his favorites!

Beetroot for Babies and Toddlers

Let's first talk about nutrition because their profile is quite impressive! They are a great source of iron, potassium, fiber, folate, vitamins A and C, and fiber, to highlight a few. I've been trying to enjoy this vegetable more often during this pregnancy too as it contains many essential nutrients.

Beetroots are also one of the few foods that really helped with my baby's constipation when we started solids.

Reasons to Love this Dip!

• Super easy to make!
• A great way to introduce flavors and pack in a ton of nutrition into your baby or child's diet. And yours!
• If your child is underweight or doesn't have much appetite, this high calorie dip will help make every bite count.
• Kids love to dip! Offering this colorful beetroot dip alongside new/disliked foods (e.g. vegetables) may help get your child excited and encourage creativity.
• Makes food interactive for kids. Whether they choose to dip (or not), eat with their spoon or fingers, it's all up to them ;).

Ingredients

Beets. You can use pre-cooked, vacuum-packed beets, like Love Beets, or cook them yourself using any of these methods. I've personally fallen in love with cooking them in my Instant Pot!

If you're going with the latter, it really helps to make a huge batch in advance. That way when it comes time to making this dip, it will take you less than 5 minutes. And you can enjoy the rest throughout the week.

Chickpeas. Can use other beans as well, like white or black beans!

Peanut butter. Adds creaminess, nutty flavor, and healthy protein and fat. If your child has a nut allergy, you can substitute with tahini or other seed butter (e.g. sunflower butter), yogurt, or avocado!

Cumin. This seasoning pairs really well with beets, but feel free to swap with whatever you fancy.

Related: How to Prepare and Serve Beans to Babies

Step by Step Instructions

Throw all the ingredients into the food processor/blender and process until smooth.

What's great about making dips is that you can easily adjust the flavor and consistency to your liking.

For instance, if you like it more garlic-y (me me!), you can set some aside for your baby and add more to the rest and blend. Need more zing? Add more lemon juice!

Serving Suggestions

For Babies (appropriate for 6 months and up)

• Serve as a baby puree
• Preload onto a spoon or let them dive right in with their hands
• Spread on the tip of cooked vegetables (here's a guide to serving the right food size and texture depending on their age and skills)
• Spread on baked goods, like meatballs, salmon quiche, muffins
• Spread on toast
• Mix in with oatmeal, rice, or other cooked grains
• Thin out and serve as a pasta sauce. Also check out this beetroot pesto

For Toddlers

• Serve with crackers
• Serve with fruits and vegetables, cooked and/or raw. Here's how to introduce raw vegetables in a safe and fun way, if you haven't already.
• Use as a spread for sandwiches, quesadillas, pizza, tacos, etc.
• Serve as a pasta sauce

Storage Suggestions

In the fridge - Transfer to an airtight container and keep for 3-5 days.

In the freezer - recommend storing in small containers so you can thaw just the amount you need.

For more tips - How to Safely Store Leftovers.