DIY Homemade Dog Food
This post may contain affiliate links. Please see our privacy policy for details.
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?
Tag @damn_delicious on Instagram and hashtag it #damndelicious!
I’m on my 4th batch of making this. My dogs love it. I highly recommend it. All my family members want me to make it for their dogs. I’m tired of our little family members having inflamed paws, severe red ears, scratching and overall health issues. Most store bought dog food is processed crap. use only fresh organic ingrediants. it’s the best for their little intestines. As a bonus, I drizzle a little organic chicken broth over food before heating
My bichon frise has itchy skin and itchy paws – do you think recipe might help her too?
This is very easy to make and my dogs love it. girl dog has a sensitive stomach and she ate this without complaints!
Easy to make and doggyliscious!
My dogs are aways salivating when I make this!
Saw a question below – spinach is healthy for your dogs – do not give them corn (that is a bad filler). I’ve made this in the past and I’ve made some tweaks – this is a great base! My add on’s for consideration: Try changing up the meats -Your 3lbs of meat can include Chicken/Beef/Turkey livers, Duck or Salmon; Grated sweet potato, tumeric and ginger; eggs, frozen blueberries, kale and flaxseed. I substitute quinoa if I don’t have the brown rice on hand. My golden lab/retriever mix she has 1.5 cups and my maltese he has 1/2 cup and there is never ever anything left in the bowl! Freezes great however, I tend to make enough to last me about 5 days. Thank you for this! It makes me feel better giving them fresher foods!
How often do you feed you Maltese. I have a Morkie I just got he’s 7 lbs. do you think it would be best if I fed him a 1/2 cup twice a day? I think me making his dog food would be best for him.
I feed mine twice a day!
Hi Marita,
Do you mix all these ingredients together (changing meat of course). Are you able to give a recipe pls 🙂 Thank you
Excellent homemade dog food recipe for my elderly dogs they love it. Thank you
Pups weren’t too keen on the spinach. So I substituted corn but they didn’t digest that very well. Just wondering, how much do you recommend at 1 serving. They are fed morning and
early evening.
Thanks, Vickie
Great idea! I am going to give it a try for my pack 🙂
Use only frozen or fresh peas. Canned peas have no food value for dogs. It is cooked away. Love your recipe website, Chungah. I use it a lot.
If my dog eat 400g of dry food proformance how many gram should i feed my dog from that recipe
Just a note that homemade diets can be more dangerous than kibble. There are vitamins and minerals in kibble that are essential. And obviously ingredients that should NOT be included. Please consult your veterinarian if you would like to solely feed your dog homemade food.
Thank you so much! My dogs live it and they’ve slowly been losing weight.
We eat 2 and 1/2 cups of canadae dry foods per feeding 2x daily. My collie 14 mos old. He is 85 pounds.How much should I feed for fresh food?
Robin
Do you need to give them a vitamin supplement?
Supplemental fish oil? If so liquid or pill?
I’ve read in many articles brown rice has arsenic and to use Oats instead ?
Any ideas for toppers?
Thank you
Can you freeze any extra dog food you make for later.
Yes
After reading an article about kibbles , how they are made and all the expired meats and dead animals being incorporated in it , I stopped feeding my chi any type of kibbles . For the past 4 years , she has been eating homemade healthy food . Brown rice , quinoa , oatmeal , cow raw milk , fish , fruits and veggies . She loved carrots and broccoli mixed with quinoa ❤️ If this is the first time you’re making homemade food, just make sure all you google all the ingredients just to double check your feeding not the toxic food ❤️❤️Thanks for this website . Good to know there are other pet owners who is feeding their dogs real food as well ❤️
Is it okay to use white rice in the recipe? I can’t find any brown rice in my pantry and I was hoping to make it today.
I’ve been feeding my Maltese white rice for years with chicken, carrot and peas. She’s very regular and never ever had issues.
Our holistic guide has steered us away from white rice, white sugar, and white flour. They are loved by candida and ultimately affect the immune system negatively.
This is such a nutritious and easy to make food. My dog loves it! I’ve been struggling for years with his dog food, he never even like any of the and would be skipping meat times trying not to eat it. I should have done this years ago. Thank you for the recipe!
I have a question does anyone know how many days this recipe lasts for because I feel like my 1 year old beagle will love this.
I read somewhere you feed them 3% of their body weight twice a day so however much it yields.
Sure wish I knew how much to give them
Serving size is 1 cup and contains 412 calories. Check the bag of food you currently give your dog and compare to that nutritional information. For my dog, he is 60lbs and I had been giving him 4 cups daily of his old food which was 1400 calories. With this food, he only needs 3 1/3 cups for the same calorie intake. Hope this helps and good luck.
Nice recipe! Thanks! It’s great to see what other people do.
I have been making my toy poodle’s food for a long time now and use my slow cooker. I switch up the meats, veggies, and grains. I’ll often throw in a whole egg (shell and all!) into the slow cooker to add calcium.
When it’s cooked, I will purée it in my cuisinart so it’s all soft. Basically baby food. The egg shell gets ground up super fine so that’s no problem. If you’re worried about nutrients, your vet probably sells the supplements to add to DIY dog food. Mine does but I haven’t bought any yet.
I freeze my dog food in blobs on a cookie sheet then put the blobs in a big Tupperware in the freezer.
Easy!
How do you know how much a serving is for each dog. I have 110# dog and a 24# dog. I really want to try this for the little because he won’t eat dry.
My dog is a very fussy eater and does not like dry dog food. I feed him a very high quality dey dog food and I mix in a few tbls of this recipe. He loves, LOVES his meal times now!
Hi Laurie, I also have a toy poodle and he is 7 months old. He doesn’t like any dog food I have bought. He wind eat the dried food either or treats are not his favourite. The person that gave the home cooked recipe said each breed has its own nutritional needs. Can you give me an idea of what veggies to give him? Thank you Brenda
I have recipe close to this, I switch out baked chicken, hamburger and ground turkey. I use mixed frozen veggies, peas, carrots, corn, green beans. I also add 1/8 cup of dry dog food. She loves it. I feed her 1/4c AM and PM. I am concerned is she getting enough vitamins etc? She is a small dog.
NO CORN. Bad for them
Can you explain why you think corn is bad for them? I asked my vet and she said in small amounts like anything else, is fine.
They can not digest the corn. I once saw a dog poop out an entire pile of corn kernels while working at a shelter. I think it is used as a filler food. Thus, I don’t think they gain any nutritional value from the corn.
People are the same way with corn. We don’t digest it. But it still has some nutritional value and we eat it often.