Dear Past Me: How To Cook Baby Bok Choy & Baby Bok Choy Recipes

Dear Sarah from exactly six months ago, who's currently standing in the produce aisle of Whole Foods at 8 AM wearing yoga pants that have definitely seen better days and a fleece pullover covered in what I hope is yogurt. You're staring at a display of tiny, adorable Chinese cabbages because you read somewhere at 3 AM that sweet potatoes aren't enough and you're spiraling into a mom-guilt panic about your child's nutritional intake.

Put the coffee down for a second and listen to me. Buying the cute little vegetables is the easy part. Actually getting them into Leo's mouth without painting the entire kitchen green is going to take a minute.

I know you're looking at these things and thinking they seem like the perfect first food because they're small, and babies are small, so obviously it's a match made in heaven. And you're not totally wrong! But there are a few things I wish somebody had told me before I brought these deceptively dirty little green stalks home and tried to feed them to a tiny human who still doesn't fully understand that his hands belong to his own body.

The medical stuff I vaguely understand

My doctor, Dr. Aris—who's a saint and has answered my panicked weekend portal messages about weirdly colored poop more times than I care to admit—actually got really excited when I told him we were trying these out. He said they're basically like a vitamin pill made of water. Or something along those lines.

From what I could gather over the sound of Maya aggressively dropping Magna-Tiles on the exam room floor, these leafy greens are like 95 percent water, which is super helpful because Leo was dealing with some serious constipation when we started solids. Dr. Aris also said there's a bunch of plant-based calcium in there for their bones, and Vitamin K so their blood works right, and a massive amount of Vitamin A for their eyesight. He also mentioned some big scientific word—glucosinolates, maybe?—that sounded like a dinosaur but is apparently a plant compound that helps their gut microbiome. I just nodded and pretended I knew exactly what that meant while handing Leo another rice puff to keep him quiet.

He did warn me that because it's in the broccoli family, it might cause some gas. So, yeah. Prepare yourself for some truly impressive, musical diapers. Also, he casually dropped that there's this super rare thing called Oral Allergy Syndrome where if they're allergic to mugwort pollen, their mouth might get itchy when they eat this? Which terrified me, but he swore it was incredibly rare and just to watch if Leo started rubbing his mouth. Spoiler: Leo was fine, but I spent three days staring at his lips like a total creep.

The absolute nightmare that's washing them

Okay, I need to go on a rant here because nobody prepares you for the dirt situation.

You look at these pristine little cabbages in the store and think, oh, a quick rinse under the tap and we're good to go. NO. Absolutely not. I swear to god, the amount of soil hidden deep in the base of these things could start a community garden. The first time I made them, I just ran them under the faucet for a second, cooked them, and when I took a bite to test the temperature, it was like chewing on a handful of sandbox sand. It was a texture from hell.

You have to aggressively chop the bottom off or literally pull every single leaf apart and scrub them under running water like you're searching for gold. It's incredibly tedious and usually happens while someone is screaming at my ankles for a snack, but if you don't do it, your kid is going to be eating straight grit. My husband Mike walked in during one of my washing sessions, saw the sheer volume of soil in the sink, and asked if I was repotting a houseplant. I nearly threw a wet green stalk at his head.

As for storing them? Just shove them unwashed in the crisper drawer in a loose bag and hope you remember to use them before they turn into yellow slime three days later.

How to not turn it into gray mush

The first rule of infant greens is that you absolutely can't serve the stalk raw because it's a massive choking hazard, and the second rule is trying to figure out how to cook it so it's soft enough for toothless gums but not so overcooked that it smells like a high school cafeteria.

When Leo was around six months old and we were deep in the messy trenches of baby-led weaning, I'd just steam the giant, thick white ribs of the stalks until they were totally soft, cut the actual leafy green parts off entirely, and hand him the massive stalk. It was brilliant because he could grab it with his clumsy little fists and just gnaw on it for twenty minutes. It helped him figure out where the back of his mouth was, and he mostly just sucked the water out of it anyway.

By the time he hit nine months and suddenly developed that tiny, terrifying pincer grasp where he wanted to pick up every microscopic crumb on the floor, I had to change strategies. I started chopping the cooked stalks into tiny little bite-sized pieces and slicing the soft cooked leaves into ribbons. I'd mix those ribbons into mashed sweet potato or rice porridge. A quick warning: sometimes those little wet green ribbons get stuck to the roof of their mouth, and they'll do this dramatic, silent gagging face that will make your heart stop, but Dr. Aris assured me it's totally harmless and they figure it out.

Now that we're past the one-year mark, it's basically a free-for-all. I chop it up, toss it in olive oil so he actually absorbs the vitamins, and let him try to use his fork, which usually results in him just throwing it at the dog. The dog, by the way, refuses to eat it.

The clothing casualties

If you take nothing else away from this letter, please understand that wet, steamed green leaves will permanently dye whatever cute aesthetic outfit you put your child in. I ruined so many pastel rompers before I wised up.

You basically have two choices: strip them down to their diaper, which means you've to give them a bath immediately after lunch, or put them in something you can easily rip off their body without dragging green slime over their face. I'm a massive fan of the Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit for this exact reason. The neck has this envelope-shoulder design, so when mealtime is over and Leo looks like a swamp monster, I just pull the entire suit DOWN over his shoulders and trap the mess inside the shirt. Plus, the organic cotton is surprisingly resilient and hasn't permanently held onto the green stains yet, though my washing machine has definitely seen some things.

If you're hunting for pieces that can survive the absolute chaos of starting solids, their organic clothing line is honestly worth a browse because I'm too tired to deal with delicate fabrics right now.

When their gums are raging

Something I totally forgot about until I was standing in the kitchen steaming veggies at noon was that right around the time you introduce solids, they also decide to start teething. It's a really fun biological joke where they're supposed to be learning to eat, but their mouth hurts so badly they just want to scream and bite your shoulder.

There were days when Leo wouldn't even look at the food I made. He was just too miserable. When the drool rash was at its peak, I honestly gave up on lunch a few times and just handed him his Panda Teether instead. I bought it on a whim because the little bamboo detail was cute, but it turned out to be amazing. The silicone is food-grade, and it has these little textured bumps that he would just viciously chew on while glaring at me. I'd throw it in the fridge for ten minutes before handing it to him, and the cold seemed to numb his gums enough that sometimes we could seriously go back to attempting the green vegetables afterward.

The aftermath of the meal

After the great green cabbage disaster of the afternoon, we usually need a severe change of scenery. Once I've wiped the floor, wiped the highchair, wiped the baby, and wiped myself, we retreat to the living room.

We had the Wooden Baby Gym set up in the corner for a long time. I'm going to be completely honest here—it's beautiful. It looks like it belongs in a minimalist Scandinavian home, which our home is absolutely not. The muted colors are lovely, and Leo did genuinely enjoy batting at the little wooden elephant when he was tinier. But as a space-saving device? It's just okay. Maya, who's seven and constantly practicing indoor gymnastics, tripped over the wooden A-frame leg at least twice a week. It's a sturdy piece of gear, but if you've a small living room or a chaotic older sibling, maybe measure your rug first to make sure it won't become an obstacle course hazard. Anyway, the point is, you need something to distract them while you drink cold coffee and mentally prepare for dinner.

Alright, I need to wrap this up because Maya just announced that she tried to flush a rock down the toilet to "see if it could swim." If you're currently in the thick of starting solids with your baby, bless you. It's messy, it's frustrating, and half the time you feel like you're just running a tiny, ungrateful diner. Go grab some soft, stain-resistant gear from Kianao to save your sanity before you try cooking these greens.

Questions I frantically Googled at 2 AM

Can my kid choke on the leafy green part?
Oh god, yes, if you don't chop it right. The leaves get super thin and slippery when cooked, and if they're too big, they can literally stick to the roof of your baby's mouth or the back of their throat. Dr. Aris told me to mince the actual leafy parts into tiny ribbons for babies under a year, or just avoid the leaves entirely and give them the thick, cooked stalk to gnaw on.

Is it normal that my baby's poop is practically neon green now?
I panicked so hard the first time this happened, but yes! Whatever goes in comes out looking almost exactly the same when they're first figuring out digestion. Unless it's accompanied by a fever or extreme fussiness, the green diapers are just proof that they genuinely swallowed some of it instead of dropping it all on the floor.

Can I serve this raw if I slice it super thin?
Nope. Nope nope nope. The raw stalks are way too firm and are a major choking hazard for babies, even if you slice them paper-thin. You have to steam or sauté them until they're mushy enough that you could easily squash them between your thumb and index finger.

Do I absolutely have to buy the organic version?
Look, I'm not made of money, but leafy greens are notoriously bad for holding onto pesticides. Because babies are so tiny, their little bodies process that stuff differently. If there's one place in the produce aisle where I genuinely shell out the extra two dollars for organic, it's the leafy stuff.

What do I do if my baby literally gags on it every time?
Take a deep breath and take a break. Gagging is a totally normal reflex—it's really their body protecting them from choking. But if it's stressing you both out, just stop. Wait a week, try mashing it into some sweet potato or something they already like, and try again. You're not failing if your six-month-old prefers bananas to cabbage.