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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Hi! This will be my first attempt at making homemade dog food. My toy schnauzer is 9lbs. How much food should she get for a meal? Also, how long will the food last in the fridge? Thanks. Louise
Louise, these are all great questions but it may be best to consult your veterinarian. We currently feed our corgis 1 cup each, supplemented by treats. It should keep for at least 2-3 days in the fridge (they are also freezer-friendly in individual servings) but as always, please use your best judgment.
I can’t wait to try this. This may be a dumb question, do you also give kibble?
Nope, not a dumb question at all. And no, I do not feed them kibble.
Oh gosh we already spend about $350/month on dog food… I bet this would be even more expensive… lol Thanks for the recipe though! 🙂
You are so welcome! But this really should not cost $350/month. That is the beauty of making dog food at home – it’s cheaper and healthier!
Hi! Made this recipe and my dog (shih tzu) LOVES it. I’m concerned about supplements though. Every site I go to either promotes a specific product, or is so vague it’s hard to figure out what they are saying. My vet doesn’t support homemade food, so asking them is counterproductive. Would you consider sharing the brand you use. I’m looking to add a multi vitamin and will be doing egg shells for calcium. I’m also adding a sweet potato to the recipe. Thanks for your help.
JulieRae, I use Balance IT® canine, recommended by my veterinarian.
I’m so excited to try this recipe! I have a female welsh corgi and she weighs a little over 20 lbs. she currently eats 1/2 cup of dry food twice per day. Would I give her the same portion size using this recipe?
Thank you!!
We give our corgis about 1 cup total, divided into 3 servings.
Thanks for a great recipe. I am getting a new puppy at the end of July and I decided to do some research on commercial dog food and the different brands. What I read shocked me. It is apparently common practise for top dog food manufacturers to use road kill, euthanized animals (obviously full of toxic chemicals and complete with their id tags and collars still attached) and whatever can be scraped from killing room floors, think beaks, feathers, feet. I have used the commercial foods in past but I can’t now. Added plus is that I LOVE to cook and so I have another mouth to lovingly feed!!
I would not feed a dog grains. They are carnivores, and don’t *need* any fruit or veg. Yes, they can eat a lot of them and can get some benefit from them, but only if they are processed right. Their bodies can’t break down the cell wall of plant matter. They definitely don’t need a food made up of so much plant matter. Fruit and veg shouldn’t exceed 10% of their diet. You also can’t compare proteins that humans can eat and digest to that of what dogs can, since meat is made up of different amino acids that plants are. Dogs thrive on me. The best diet you can feed your dog is a raw diet consisting of 80% meat, 10% edible bone, 5% liver and 5% other secreting organ – all raw. It’s so much simpler to make than something such as this recipe, and so much easier for your dog to digest. Cooking meat alters it, and depletes the nutrients, so it makes it much harder on a dog’s system. Also since the nutrients have been depleted it’s not going to be balanced.
How much in cups do I give my labradors per feed based on your recipe?.
Bev, this is something that should be consulted with your veterinarian.
dogs are carnivores mostly though….much more meat is needed…and they only get veggies and grains because we give them those….they don’t crave them….I’ve fed my big old Lab (14yrs) raw since he was a pup…no health issues at all. And that’s just meat and bone, very little veggie and zero grains.
Yes, dogs have been domesticated for thousands of years, but dogfood has only come to be a thing in the last 100yrs or so….they either hunted for themselves or were fed bones and meat scraps…not veggies and grains!! They will eat the stomach contents of a kill, but for the stomach lining which is full of nutrients.
Dogs have been domesticated for over 10,000 years. They can handle table scraps and love them.
Cats have been domesticated for under 4,000 years (please correct me if this is a flawed fact).
They need MEAT.
Dogs learned to eat corn and grains and whatever as they protected their Human pack-mates.Cats were tasked with killing rats in barns and other places that they were placed to kill vermin. MEAT. Live animals that they kill themselves. So now we give them meat-based cat-food.
This is just what I’ve gleaned from the web. It might be wrong.
Hi. I just happened to find our website this morning and saw that you make your own dog food! I do, too, but I feed her raw food. Do you have any recipes for raw dog food that can be made and frozen!
Thanks.
Unfortunately, I do not have any recipes for raw dog food at this time.
I’ll keep checking back. I will be trying your dog treats! Thanks.
Helen, do you wanna raw treats or raw meals recipes? Well, I think it should be for treats, since there is no recipe for meals. You can do fridge drieds snacks.
Cut thin pieces of meat or organ, spread a clean plate, and bring to the refrigerator WITHOUT cover it. In about 10 days, the pieces will be dry, as the cold air of the refrigerator will remove any moisture present in pieces of meat. Just do not forget: the more liquid in the meat (liver, for example), more will shrink in the end. And the more lean, the faster the snack will be ready. I usually use chicken breast, kidney or liver and my girls love it!
i also use an organic diet for my dogs as one is allergic to everything with a preservative & chicken (hormones). corn is also on the no-no list & i give a drizzle of grapeseed oil in their food. have found the fish oil capsules makes her itch too much as some of these capsules have linseed oil in them. olive oil is good to use as well. chopped up parsley is good for their breath.supplement sardines or tuna in spring water as well.
My dog is celiac and the dog food is expensive,so I give him his dry food in the morning and at night he gets hamburger,salmon or another kind of fish (he is allergic to pork and chicken),brown rice and I mix the veg,brocolli,cauliflower,sweet potatoe (white are hard for dogs to digest),zucchini,peas,carrots,celery,cabbage,beans,fennel,quinoa,parsley and pumpkin.Never feed them onions,white potatoes,tomatoe,grapes,avacado or turnip,they are toxic and give them enough you can kill your pet.My dog loves frozen beans or frozen mini carots as a snack.
I checked with my vet after my dogs got into my tomato plants. The vet said that as long as they’re only eating the tomato (no leaves or stem) then they’re OK. The toxins are all in the plant and not the fruit.
My beagle who lived to be 17 years old would go out to the garden and pick her own tomatoes. If I closed the gate she would climb the fence.
I make my rottis food. She wasn’t crazy about spinach so I add brussel sprouts. I quarter them and as they cook with the other veggies they breakdown into edible bites. She also enjoys sweet potato. I make about 25-30 10 oz servings at a time. I freeze them where my ice marker is suppossed to be in the freezer! No ice in our house….but you make sacrifices for those you love!!!
How much do you feed your rottie daily?
Thank you for this recipe Chungah! We had to put our 13 yr. old Chocolate lab to rest last week, and our 4 yr. old lab/sheppard has been severely depressed. He wouldn’t eat anything, so I started making this for him, and he gobbles it down! It’s the only thing he looks forward each day while he’s grieving his brother, so thank you for giving our pup some happiness in his days of grief!
This recipe looks great but, do any vitamins need to be added?
Lisa, we do add supplements/vitamins as directed by our vet/nutritionist but this really should be answered by your veterinarian.
What vitamins/supplements do you add? I’ll of course talk to my vet but curious as to what you supplement with, and what types of supplements I should look into. My king Charles spaniel has heart disease so we are starting a homemade diet.
We use Balance IT® Canine as recommended by our veterinarian.
Would you recommend having dry kibble available also for necessary vitamins instead of the vitamins? My dogs won’t chew tablets.
Robin,
I also have a Cavalier KCS, no mitral valve disease yet, but 50% of them have some level by 5 years. Did you find a good (balanced per AAFCO requirement recipe?) I have one I’m happy to share with you but it is not tailored to heart disease. Not a fan of Balance IT since their recipe site won’t allow adding liver or ground egg shells, therefore uses copious amounts of the supplement, going way over recommended levels of many nutrients just to get enough calcium,Choline, Zinc & copper. Most Vets have no training in canine nutrition and it’s hard to find a good canine nutritionist. Please email me directly patcaldwell3@msn.com
So, I often brew my own beer. There is a ton of grains when I am done with a small batch (+20 lb). I have seen some people make dog treats as a byproduct of brewing beer. I have two boxers that I cant keep them out of my grains at the end of a brew. They will not eat their dog food though! If I could find a way to incorporate the grains in to dog food, that would be super efficient!
Chad,
we also have a new Boxer from the shelter 1.5 yrs old. We also brew beer as you do. Your post was from 5/19/2015 and I was wondering if you came up with a way to incorporate the grains from brewing into dog food. Would love to hear back from you.
made it today…cant wait to try it tomorrow!
I have a 10 yr old GSD and I did extensive research on raw food diets and home cooked diets to ensure I was giving her a complete and balanced meal (balance over time) and my method is making her a bone broth (she doesn’t get the cooked bones) with fresh herbs and veg that take my fancy at time of shop and I do add some brown rice as she’s a large dog and I want to ensure she gets enough solid food which is cooked in a slow cooker.
When it cools, I skim off extra excess fat and discard the bones and add the mix to her portion containers along with mixed organs, raw meaty bones, raw mixed meat from the butchers and some portions will be fish based using canned whole sardines or canned salmon. Each time I cook up a big batch, it’s all different mixes of the required elements but measured out to the approx right portions.
Most vets will frown upon home made diets unless it’s also supplemented with a good dry food to make sure they get both the macro and micro nutrients you may miss.
i think this is a great idea and will try it. My chow rescue had horrid mange which is finally in control.
I make my own treats for her (vet had samples at his open house). I just thinly slice 2 sweet potatoes. Spread out on cookie sheet. Bake at 300 for 90 minutes. She loves them and the trick is once they are cool, keep in a closed container. This way, I know what is in it and don’t have to worry about a “recall”
Thank you for the recipe.