About Eggs
If your baby is known to be allergic to egg, do not feed them egg.
Eggs are a common allergy causing food in Australia.
To reduce the risk of your baby developing a food allergy, it is recommended that you offer well cooked egg to your baby soon after they start eating solid foods.
What is well cooked egg?
A well cooked egg has been cooked all the way through – the white and the yolk should not be runny. An example of a well cooked egg is hard boiled egg. To cook an egg so that it is hard boiled, the egg will need to be boiled for 10 minutes.
Puree or mash the hard boiled egg and mix it into a food that your baby is used to eating, such as pureed or mashed vegetables, depending on the texture of food they are able to eat.
Why start with well cooked egg?
When your baby first starts eating egg, it is recommended that you offer your baby well cooked egg.
Well cooked egg is recommended because it is less likely to cause an allergic reaction in babies who are sensitive to egg. Less cooked forms of egg, such as soft boiled egg (with runny yolks or whites) and scrambled egg, are more likely to cause a food allergy reaction. Powdered egg products (which may be made from raw egg) are the most likely to cause an allergic reaction in sensitive babies.
Once your baby is used to eating well cooked egg and there has been no sign of an allergic reaction, you can start to add cooked egg in other forms (for example, mashed omelette), into your baby’s diet.
Here are some suggestions for ways to offer egg to your baby.
Choose the texture that your baby is managing.
Smooth foods
- Try pureed hard-boiled egg mixed into pureed vegetables. You may need to add a little bit of water when pureeing the egg to get it to the right texture for your baby.
For more food ideas and recipes, click here.
Mashed foods and soft finger foods
- Hard-boiled egg can be mashed and mixed into pureed vegetables, such as mashed sweet potato
- Pikelets
- Well cooked scrambled egg
For more food ideas and recipes, click here.
More roughly mashed and soft finger foods
- Omelettes, cut up and offered as a finger food or chopped up and mixed into fried rice.
- Frittatas
- French toast
- Egg in homemade muffins
Toddler and family foods
- Add cut up hard boiled egg to a grazing plate
- Soft boiled ‘dippy eggs’ make a quick and easy meal
- Eggs baked into homemade fruit loaf
