Soft-Bone Sardine & White Bean Mash
Allergen lists cover the priority allergens in the recipe as written. Always check your own ingredient labels, and introduce each new allergen on its own first.
Ingredients
- 1 x 90 g tin sardines in spring water or olive oil, no added salt if you can find it, drained and rinsed
- 150 g (1 cup) cooked no-salt-added cannellini or butter beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 tbsp (15 ml) full-fat pasteurised plain yogurt (contains Dairy)
- 1 tsp (5 ml) lemon juice
- 1 tbsp (15 ml) extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp finely chopped fresh parsley
- 2 slices thick wholemeal bread, lightly toasted, for serving — choose the lowest-salt loaf you can and read the label, since many loaves also contain soya flour and a few contain milk powder (contains Wheat; for a wheat-free version omit the toast and serve on soft steamed courgette batons instead)
- 1 small courgette or 1/2 small sweet potato, cut into batons, for the wheat-free serving option
Method
- 1. Drain the sardines and rinse them briefly under cold water to wash off salty tinning liquid. Check them over with your fingers: the tiny backbone is edible and is the calcium source, but crush it completely between your fingertips so no firm fragment remains.
- 2. Rinse the beans well to wash off any residual canning liquid, then pinch off and discard any loose skins.
- 3. Mash the beans and sardines together with a fork until completely smooth — no lumps or fibrous strands.
- 4. Stir in the yogurt, lemon juice, olive oil and parsley.
- 5. Loosen with a splash of water if the mash is stiff; it should be soft and spreadable, never a thick sticky glob.
- 6. If serving on vegetables rather than toast, steam the courgette or sweet potato batons for 8-10 minutes until they squash easily between thumb and forefinger, then cool to lukewarm.
- 7. Spread the mash in a thin, even layer no thicker than 2-3 mm on the toast fingers or steamed batons and serve at room temperature.
How to serve by age
6–8 months
Spread a thin layer (no thicker than 2-3 mm) onto toast cut into finger-length strips about 8-9 cm long and about 2 cm wide — roughly an adult finger's width — or onto soft steamed courgette batons of the same size, so the whole-hand palmar grasp can wrap around them with the end sticking out of the fist. A thick glob of any spread is a choking risk — keep the layer thin.
9–12 months
Cut the thinly spread toast into 1-1.5 cm bite-sized squares, or offer 1 cm pea-sized dollops of the mash on a preloaded spoon, so baby can pick pieces up with the pincer grasp between thumb and forefinger.
Paediatric note
Canned sardines are one of very few foods that deliver calcium, vitamin D and omega-3 DHA together — the soft edible backbone supplies the calcium, while vitamin D is what lets the gut absorb it. Sardines are a low-mercury oily fish, and UK guidance caps oily fish at about 2 portions a week for infants because of pollutant accumulation; always crush the bones fully. Tinned fish and ordinary bread are two of the biggest salt sources in a weaning diet, so rinse the sardines, pick a low-salt loaf and add no salt at all. This recipe contains fish, dairy and wheat — introduce it only after each of those has been met separately, and check the bread label, because soya flour is a common bread improver that would add a fourth allergen without appearing in the recipe name.
Source guidance: https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/baby/feeding-nutrition/Pages/default.aspx
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