Recipe For Healthy Homemade Dog Food – This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualified purchases at no cost to you.
Homemade dog food is such an easy way to pamper your dog and feel good about it. All you need is a stove and a large pot to prepare a tasty and healthy meal for your dog.
Recipe For Healthy Homemade Dog Food
This recipe is the stovetop instructions for making my Instant Pot Dog Food recipe. I know not everyone has an Instant Pot (although I really recommend using one to make life easier 😉 ), so I decided to create instructions that everyone can use.
Know Better For Dogs
These recipes came about because the commercial dog food options available to us didn’t provide exactly what we were looking for in terms of optimal nutrition and we wanted something without unnecessary additives, so we talked to the vet and decided that homemade dog food would be good for us solution.
This recipe is pretty comparable to what you might get at the grocery store from Fresh Pet (I think Costco sells it in large tubes), except you can control what goes in it and it’s fun to make your own!
The beauty of making your own dog food is that you can think about your dog’s needs and any food allergies he may have. Instead of reading a million labels, you have control over what goes into your food. If your dog is picky, you can also feed him what he likes:
Dogs are just like humans in that there is no “one size fits all” when it comes to nutrition – it’s called bio-individuality. All dogs are omnivores and enjoy eating both animals and plants – unlike cats who are strict carnivores, but the types of animals and plants they enjoy vary from dog to dog.
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Some dogs are allergic to chicken, some are allergic to salmon. Some can only eat venison. Find what works for your dog and they will be happy! Like people – I can end up in the hospital if I eat poblano peppers, and I have good friends who can die from eating peanuts. Bodies are wild.
This is how you make homemade dog food on the stove. (To make homemade dog food in the Instant Pot, see my Homemade Dog Food in the Instant Pot recipe.)
First, heat a medium or large pot on the stove and cook the minced meat. (Pictures 1-3) Drain off the fat and discard when cool. (Figure 4)
Then put the drained meat back into the pot and add the coconut oil and frozen vegetables. (I add a bag or two of frozen vegetables, aiming for 20-24 ounces. If you’re using a 12-ounce bag, use two. If you’re using a 16-ounce bag, use one and a half.) (Image 5) Stir to combine and allow the coconut oil to melt.
Diy Homemade Dog Food
Bring to a boil and simmer until most of the liquid has evaporated and the oats are tender. (Figure 8)
Remove the pot from the heat and allow the dog food to cool before serving or storing. The food can be divided into portions depending on the needs – I usually divide it in half and freeze the batch. I use a measuring cup when serving the food, so I don’t waste time dividing it into individual portions.
I like the mixed vegetable mix from Walmart or Aldi that is peas or green beans, carrots and corn. (Don’t use anything with onions in it!) The last mix I bought also had lima beans in it. You can also use just a bag of carrots mixed with a bag of chopped green beans. (You know your dog, so feed him what he likes – this is such an easy recipe to use what you can get at the store/have on hand!)
Definitely! Fruits contain many nutrients that are good for dogs. Just don’t overdo it. We often use what is in season or what we have in the freezer. We like to use any type of berries – strawberries or blueberries work best. DO NOT use grapes as they are very harmful to dogs. You can add fruit before or after cooking, just remember that cooking with blueberries will turn your dog food purple 😉
How To Make Dog Food At Home
The easiest grains to use in home dog food are oats and cooked rice. (Both brown and white work—obviously don’t use leftover fried rice with onions!) If your dog has a grain allergy, you can substitute diced sweet potatoes.
We like to add a little bit of leftovers from all sorts of things: cooked duck (we don’t like to use it as our main protein source because it’s a bit greasy, fatty and heavy), roast beef, pot roast, roast chicken. .even pork. We also sometimes add eggs, beef stock, duck stock, or sometimes even venison (she really likes a piece of venison and some that we don’t!)
We supplement her diet with raw shin bones (frozen with brains) and raw pig’s feet. She loves them in all their vile, shallowness.
The most important thing is to be safe and discuss portion sizes and ingredients with your vet before switching to a new diet.
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Here’s our personal experience: I feed Mellie 1 cup twice a day (with a small scoop of homemade yogurt) and she averages 40-45 lbs. She really likes it! (For dry food, she also eats 1 cup twice a day, so you can start with the same amount and see if you need to increase or decrease after a few days.)
If Mellie has had an extremely active day, running around like a border collie chasing squirrels up trees or patrolling the fence, I give her a little extra for dinner. Our vet likes that we rotate different meats, vegetables and fruits – it gives her different nutrients that a dog would find in the wild.
If your dog has spent his entire life eating grain, make this transition slowly as he may end up with diarrhea. For dogs that eat a lot of table scraps, you can replace about ¼ of the food with this food for 3-4 days, then switch to half and half for 3-4 days, then ¾ new food + ¼ of the old food. 3-4 days, then 100% new food!
If your dog is really sensitive, I would do it for a week to two weeks at each stage. Mellie doesn’t have a problem with these transitions because I add new weird things to her homemade food, but if your dog has been eating the same kibble her whole life, you should go slowly.
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I serve Mellie’s food hot or cold – she is not very picky. I often top it with 1/4 cup plain yogurt (no added sweeteners) when serving. Yogurt is not necessary but provides probiotics and helps maintain healthy digestion. I love making plain Greek yogurt in my Instant Pot.
Have you tried this recipe? Rate it and leave a comment below. I’d love to hear what you think!
To supplement the calcium in this dish, I will also add bone meal or broccoli stalks as a serving of vegetables. You can store them in the freezer and use as needed. A can of sardines packed in water can also be added. Fair warning, both the broccoli stalks and the sardines make this dish smell… kind of like mincemeat.
This recipe is really simple. Minced meat, turkey, fresh fish or chicken can be used. You can also use shredded chicken breast. The only thing I wouldn’t recommend is canned fish because they can be very fatty and too much can cause pancreatitis.
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I alternate between oats and rice and vary the vegetables and fruits depending on what we have and what’s in season. Mellie is a former street and will eat almost anything, especially if you cook everything together, so we give her all kinds of fun vegetables!
Serving Size: 1 cup Calories: 542 kcal Carbohydrates: 18 g Protein: 31 g Fat: 38 g Saturated Fat: 17 g Cholesterol: 116 mg Sodium: 143 mg Potassium: 565 mg Fiber: 2 g Sugar: 1 g Vitamin A: 2477 C vitamin: 5 mg Calcium: 51 mg Iron: 4 mg
I am a newlywed, food blogger, health coach and mom to a hot border collie mess. I love repurposing old family recipes and try to cook as many meals as possible using the Instant Pot. Medically Reviewed by Kathy W. Warwick, R.D., CDE, Nutrition – Hilary I. Lebow – Updated April 11, 2020
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