🥜 Peanuts
Allergen note
Peanut is one of the most common food allergens, and offering it early, from around 6 months once your baby eats other solids, lowers the chance of a peanut allergy developing. If your baby has severe eczema or an egg allergy, talk to your pediatrician before the first taste. Once peanut is tolerated, keep offering it a few times a week.
How to serve
Offer peanuts only ground or as a smooth butter: from around 6 months, stir about 1 teaspoon of finely ground peanuts or thinned smooth peanut butter into oatmeal, yogurt or fruit purée. From 12 months, sprinkle ground peanuts over soft noodles or vegetables, or spread smooth peanut butter thinly on toast. Wait until after age 5 to offer whole or chopped peanuts.
Preparation
Choose plain, unsalted dry-roasted peanuts rather than salted, honey-roasted or flavored snack peanuts, rub off loose skins, and grind them in a food processor to a fine powder. Keep blending for several minutes for a smooth butter with no added salt or sugar. Store it airtight in the fridge, and discard peanuts that look moldy or taste bitter or stale.
Texture and choking risk
Whole peanuts and peanut pieces are one of the most common causes of choking and of food being inhaled into the lungs in young children, so keep them away from kids under 5. Thick peanut butter can also stick in the throat: thin it with warm water or yogurt or spread it very thinly, and always supervise.
Starting ages are typical guidance for healthy, full-term babies who show signs of readiness. Your paediatrician may advise differently, especially where there is a family history of allergy.
Recipes with peanuts
Track first tastes and reactions
Log when your child first tries peanuts, note any reaction and see it in the allergen tracker.
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