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.
Did you make this recipe?
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Is this recipe good for 1.5 year old beagle?
Very helpful and comforting information. Thank you
This is the only dog food that I cook for my dogs but I don’t I mix it all together in a big bowl and then I put it in individual like cupcake pans or little loaf pans and I bake it all so I just mix everything together add a couple eggs some oatmeal bread crumbs , some organic powdered kale, and sometimes bacon but like I said I just mixed it all together in a huge bowl and make individual servings or little individual loafs or I can just split it between the two dogs but they absolutely love it and then sometimes couple times during the week I’ll add chopped Apple to their meal.
And don’t forget some blue berries every now and then. Our pups love em!!!
This sounds great. But make sure not to over cook the meats as I have learn over cooking takes out all the nutrients that pets need. Over cooking like store bought food is not good for your pets. It only gives your pet the bare minimum of what keep your pets alive. So it’s ok to under cook the meats. Over cooking and chemicals which they putting in the food gives pet upset stomachs, and can cause cancer. That why I can wait to try some recipes and maybe come up a few of my own.
If I am wrong please let me know.
My dogs just devoured their first homemade food, I read that they needed to have organ meat as well so I bought chicken gizzard and livers and mixed it with the turkey, elides Qi I gotta them quick doses of Punkin I’ll started trying to replace the turkey with chicken and ground beef for a variety, hopefully my 9 yr old shih Tzu’s will start to feel better and lose a little weight
I have been making my own dog food for 20 plus years. You have to add vitamins and minerals and I have a wonderful company with all natural ingredients … also probiotics … mine is the highest possible it is amazing and a joint supplement. My babies 6 tiny chi’s only have a pinch of each and the bigger dogs more. having 8 dogs my tiny chihuahuas don’t eat much and I hate kibble! I am vegetarian and my dogs stand in line waiting for me to drop something they love veggies and especially broccoli … I don’t like zucchini they are tiny and it is stringy I alternate with so many other veggies .. one pup does not like peas. I do animal rescue and talk about well being of animals on radio show … this is what I have been feeding for over 20 years but I alternate. Also, oil should be added at the time of serving … never in with meal. Never give dogs ice cold food from fridge always room temp or a quick newk. I used to feed my babies mixed home made pureed veggies in containers never store bought jars. 🙂 Nothing like homemade food!
Can you please send the link to the vitamins you recommend to be added to the food?
So tired of buying dog food that leaves my dogS unhappy and looking for more food. So, learning how to make a balance homemade dog food for two chihuahuas would be a relief. I could add some of their dry food to it or add a vitamin pill/powder.
Hi, could you please email me the links of the vitamins you recommend please? Oceanrose79@gmail.com I have two poms I am trying to home cook for.
I would love to start making my dogs food but I’m not sure what the serving size should be, can anyone help?
Hi- can you please provide the name of the nutrient company or email me? H.gendus@gmail.com thanks so much! I’m nervous my dog isn’t getting enough nutrients he needs.
My little chiwawah was eating hardly anything, even whenid softened his KD dog food.. He’s 13 and has lost several teeth. When I gave him 1/4 C to try it out, he licked the bowl clean. He ate a second helping and again licked the bowl clean. That us so very unlike him, hes always so picky. I’m so thankful.
Hi could you pls give me your recommendation for the vitamins and probiotics and other minerals you add to your dog food?
Thank you
Marjanet7@yahoo.com
I’d love information on the powder supplements. Thank you.
Hi I have a miniature dachshund who is 6 months old I want to make my own food for her. As at the moment she is on fresh food made by a company called butternut box which is great but expensive. And as she gets older I would like to be able to control her diet but am also scared not to poison her !!? Can you advise kindly?!
Hi, can I get the name of the vits, mins and probiotics as well please 🙂
mer1001@hotmail.com
TY
Can you please send the name of your company and vitamins and prebiotic please? Rollingstonelee79@yahoo.com
Thanks!
Can you please let me know what company uh ou are using for your vitamins, sracz52@ptd.net
Thank you
Hello,
What is the name of the vitamin/minerals company? Thank you!
Can you send me the information on the vitamin supplements that you were talking about.
Thanks
I would like the name of the vitamin place you use
barbiee65@gmail.com
I just found this thread and would love to have the link also for the vitamins and probiotics that you mix in with homemade dog food. My email is dkoele22@gmail.com. Please and thanks!
Love this dog food. My Cairn Terriers are feeling great!
How much do you portion for your Cairns. Asking for my friends (3 Cairns)
I’ve been making my dog food for the last 2 months & he really liked it. But now he’s not eating it like he used to. What can I add to it that is different? So he will eat like he did at first. I make him the ground turkey & vegetables.
I’m in the same situation. The first homemade recipe I was using was a hit! Our dog gobbled it up. It’s now about 3 months later and she turns her nose up at it. So, today I’ll try a new recipe, the one in this post. Hopefully it will re-engage her!
I had the same issue, my corgi was sick of ground turkey and rice apparently – I switched to chicken and oatmeal and now he gobbles it down like he’s starving, wakes me up at 4 am to eat
Excellent recipe, similar to “farmer’s dog” subscription but much cheaper to make at home. I use ninja chopper ($20) on Amazon and makes doing the veggies a snap. Thanks for this recipe. I’ve been feeding for about 6 months now and dogs love it!
My small dog went days without eating … even though we fed her top quality fresh dog food … in her mind it wasn’t “people good”. Her sensitive digestive system couldn’t handle people food. So, I decided to make a recipe the vets gave me: boiled chicken or ground beef / white rice … etc.
It worked well and she got better. So, I decided to do it everyday and added a couple ingredients like this recipe. I like this recipe because it took it a step further.
Thank you so much for making this goal achievable!!!
My vet is really discouraging me from making my own. Disappointing. But I’m still going to make it and add it to his kibble. Better than him refusing to eat because he only wants table food!
Fantastic recipe – similar to what the vets suggested
I’ve made this before but there are a couple ingredients I didn’t use .what if you think your dogs are allergic to chicken can you use beef ground meat ?
My Westie is allergic to chicken, turkey, beef and pork.
I use instead duck or lamb at the vets advice. Somedays salmon, too.
My dog definitely loved this! Slowly converting from kibble to homemade food. For the rice, does this call for 1 1/2 cooked or uncooked rice?
Use cooked rice.
Easy to find ingredients, I just made this for the first time and put it into seven pint containers, so although your recipe said eight cups, I actually have 14 cups from a single recipe. It is cooling, but the dog was licking the stove while I was making it so I think that’s a good indicator! I have a 108 lb weimaraner, and a 71 lb black mouth cur (he’s the picky eater). they are eating dry food now, so I will start putting this on top of their kibble and transition them. I checked out the Balance IT website – very informative!!
Hi Michelle, many thanks for the advice ,i am making some tonight ,i was worried of the reheating rice in a microwave although dont have one the brown rice says dont reheat once cooked so bit confusing sometimes , so i will warm it in a pan for sure once thoroughly defrosted , i am more confident now to bag up and freeze,i am trying to simpify meals for my chihuahua and hope its a success, he loves all these ingrediants but not all together so sholud be a big yes hopefully tomorrow, many thanks for the help, kind regards carol
Apologies for the misspelling, my question was meant to ask if anyone can help if i can serve from the fridge at room
temp after overnight defrosting without 15 sec in the microwave as i dont have one as is already cooked ,i cant wait to make for my chihuahua ,if anyone can help on this .
Carol, when you divide the food into individual meals, use a good quality baggie, not a sandwich baggie. To heat, once it is thawed, place the baggie in a pot of hot water and let warm. If you have a food vacuum sealer, even better, as you can boil the bag of food. Just be careful to thoroughly stir the food and test the temperature before feeding it to your dog.
Hi! I have some input on this from my short experience of feeding our rescue Chihuahua we have had for about a month. He had tummy troubles a week in (possibly bc of antibiotics on an empty stomach) so we started making him homemade food and it has been going very well, he loves it and is doing much better. But this is about how I reheat his frozen portions. I fill snack sized ziplocs with his food when it has cooled enough, and once they are zipped and laid flat they are only about 1/2″ thick. I stack in freezer and every feeding time I fill a medium sized bowl with the hottest water my faucet will produce, then put the baggy in for about 10-15 minutes (until it’s room temp or warmer). The trick is to fill the bowl THEN put the bag in, this way the water stays hotter. If you run the hot water over the bag it cools the water going into the soaking bowl so it takes longer to defrost the contents. Sometimes to speed up the process I dump and refill the hot water bowl 1-2 times as I’m puttering around the kitchen. Because his serving sizes are small and in a thin strip, they defrost quickly and can even get warmed up. I would not give my dog microwaved good and this technique of defrosting/reheating works well if you have a few minutes.
Can you tell me how much to feed a 11 lb 4 year old dog thank you
Great recipe!!! Thank you!!
Just made this to try on my dogs going to introduce it to them with the remaking dry dog for I have for them. Hopefully they will like it. I’ll let you know how it goes. Easy to make used chicken.
When you give the protein to carbs ratio, do you mean by weight or by cup measurements? If weight, is that raw or cooked weight?
Thank you so much for sharing this! I can’t wait to try it with my pups. Do you have a reference for where I can find out how much to give them? I have a 18 lb Pug, a 35 lb Shiba mix and a 65 lb Golden Retriever.