DIY Homemade Dog Food
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Keep your dog healthy and fit with this easy peasy homemade recipe – it’s cheaper than store-bought and chockfull of fresh veggies!
I never thought I would be one of those dog owners who made homemade human food for their pups. Not in a million years.
But when Butters recently fell sick with an upset stomach, our vet advised us to feed him a bland diet – chicken and rice without any kind of seasoning. So that’s what we did – we poached a chicken, shredded it in a food processor, and mixed in some white rice and fed him this bland diet for 3 days.
That’s when I started to do some research on homemade dog food, and I have been so amazed as to how many different kinds of vegetables dogs can have. And with the help of Balance IT, you can create so many different recipes for your pup!
Now the best part about making homemade dog food – just like making anything at home – is that you know exactly what is going into the dog bowl, and not any of that questionable gelatinous gunk from the canned food.
But it’s important to note that dogs have different nutrient requirements than humans for their proportional body size, such as:
- High-quality protein (meat, seafood, dairy or eggs)
- Fat (meat or oil)
- Carbohydrates (grains or vegetables)
- Calcium (dairy)
- Essential fatty acids (egg yolks or oatmeal)
Now this recipe here has a balance of 50% protein, 25% veggies and 25% grains, but the ratios can easily be adjusted to suit your pup’s breed and/or needs.
Once you’ve made your batch, you can divide them up into single servings, note the date, and freeze it. When ready to serve, you can defrost it in the fridge overnight and nuke it for 15-30 seconds. That’s it! Now who knew that making dog food would be this easy?
DIY Homemade Dog Food
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups brown rice
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 3 pounds ground turkey
- 3 cups baby spinach, chopped
- 2 carrots, shredded
- 1 zucchini, shredded
- ½ cup peas, canned or frozen
Equipment
Instructions
- In a large saucepan of 3 cups water, cook rice according to package instructions; set aside.
- Heat olive oil in a large stockpot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add ground turkey and cook until browned, about 3-5 minutes, making sure to crumble the turkey as it cooks.
- Stir in spinach, carrots, zucchini, peas and brown rice until the spinach has wilted and the mixture is heated through, about 3-5 minutes.
- Let cool completely.
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Thank You Sue for the link. I will opt for other greens for my babies.
I have been making dog food for some time now and I know that there’s more nutrition in it as opposed to the canned food.
I drive for a living and need to be able to freeze portions.
My dog now will be having her teeth worked on which will result in extracting the rest of them. Looking for a recipe to blend down to soup. I believe that I can do that with any of these recipes. Thank you for your research and sharing.
Can you can this to make it more shevle stable. Thanks
How do I know how much to feed at each meal? I have a small senior puggle.
This is a great recipe! Just need to add some calcium. A couple ground up washed egg shells works perfect. To really boost nutrition, I also add a can or two of sardines.
Sure my dogs love it but I swapped out the spinach as it has a warning for regular feeding https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/nutrition/fruits-vegetables-dogs-can-and-cant-eat/
Would you mind sharing what you used as a substitute for the spinach?
This was so easy to make and it makes so much. My Yorkie is super picky but he chowed this down so fast! I’m so excited as this is my first attempt at making an actual dogfood recipe.. Thank you!!
We recently started cooking for our dog. She was slightly overweight with skin conditions and very rarely would eat during the day until we started cooking for her. Now she eats a full meal twice a day. I will definitel make these recipes.! But what size recipes appropriate for?
This stuff is AMAZING. I just cooked up a batch and my pups were like WOWZA! I had just finished the last of their Farmer’s Dog food (which I had been trying out and one of my pups was not impressed by it), so I thought I would try this recipe. An absolute keeper for sure. So grateful! Thank you!
My dog has some health issues….I found this recipe and it has helped her get better, she’s like a new dog and she loves it. Thank you so much for sharing….I will never buy store bought dog food again.
How do you know how much to feed to your dog ? Also, do you mix with dry kibble or just this fresh food?
My only concern is calcium. I add some bone meal calcium powder and coconut oil after I heat my dog a portion I stir it in before I give it to her, rather than heat it.
Thank you – my pup, 16yrs young, stopped eating her dry kibble which was originally recommended by her vet some years ago even with canned, organic wet food. I now give her a small amount of kibble mixed with a larger amount of this homemade recipe and she doesn’t hesitate to gobble it up. One note, transition slowly as she did throw up after 2 days – I could see bits of veggies.
for about 6 months now, I have been making food like this for my dog. He is a 9 year old 150 pound dog, was over weight and not very active. He has lost weight and bounces around like a puppy. I would rather feed him this type of food than dry dog food. it really is not that expensive or hard to make.
How much do you feed your pup?! Mine is a little smaller than yours (weight-wise) nut same age and she generally only eats once a day, two cups of dry kibble. I know she hates it and I’m curious how much of this fresh food you feed your dog. Thanks in advance!
The Best Dog Food for German Shepherds
How much do you feed your GSD? Once or twice daily? I have 2 GSDs; on 12 yr old male about 95 lbs. and a 4 yr. old female about 75 lbs. Do you make in advance and freeze?
Thank you.
Curious as to how much you feed your GSD. I have 2 GS and one of mine has had an overgrowth of bacteria in his gut for over two months despite antibiotics. I’m going to go the human food route and hopefully cure him if his chronic diarrhea. I just don’t know how much to feed him because I know he’d eat more than he needs. Thank you in advance.
Perfect recipe Thank You
I just made this amazing recipe, my dog is a 14yr senior and a very picky eater, once she tried it she finished it in one feeding. Thank you, she is my heart and I was starting to worry. I am now looking for more recipes to give her a variety.
Once again, thank you for developing these incredible recipes ❤️
honestly, I’m totally broke and out of food for my 4 large dogs…pulled out some ground pork yesterday and made them a mash like this added a couple apples and black eye peas…more protein right….no seasoning and then added the frzn spinach which really gave it a blan smell…..but my lab x’s x3 and gsd was the picky one but he ate it lol
I’m gonna use ground chicken today….
added a few potatoes too
Awesome! I’m trying to figure out how to feed my dogs on a tight budget, too, so here’s hoping this will be cheaper!
My dogs devoured this, and they are very picky. Thank you!
Can you add bone broth? I’m going to try this out today.
Cook the rice in bone broth instead of water. I saw that on another site.
Yes – I cooked the leanest ground Chuck and turkey then added cooked rice using bone broth – be sure to get sodium free
Alright so my canine LOVES this formula. Just issue is I’m discovering he can’t process rice like by any means… So I’m attempting to sort out what to substitute it with. Online it says yams. In any case, idk the amount I would use to substitute it.
You could maybe try oatmeal?
No oatmeal,no heavy grain ,get like more raw meat, like turkey liver,beef liver raw more meat is always better for dogs ,raw meat ,yes raw meat the spinach,yes,ginger,carrots,no rice.it needs to be 80% of the raw meat they can have ,look at Dr.Martins video
My pooch had a difficult week, vomiting for a few days. We switched to making her our own mixture of pumpkin, ground chicken and rice. She loved it so much (and it cured whatever was ailing her) that we decided to continue making her own food.
I’ll be trying this recipe next! I have everything in this recipe so it will be made this week! Thank you!