Home Cooking for Pets

Pets are meant to be our best friends, but would you subject your best friend to eating the same, bland, mass-produced food day after day?! More and more owners are starting to see the benefits of making their own homemade pet food, whether it’s as a nice surprise every now and then, or to ensure they know where the food their bestie is eating comes from. At NetCost Market, we believe great food is appreciated regardless of size, shape, or species, so we’ve put together a collection of tasty home-cooked pet food recipes to keep your furry friends happy!

Healthy Turkey and Brown Rice Dog Food

Dogs need a good balance of nutrients, so it’s important to include high-quality protein, healthy fats, good carbohydrates, a high amount of calcium, and essential fatty acids in every meal to keep them full of energy! This recipe is the ultimate healthy doggy dinner, and it certainly won’t break the bank.
Disclaimer: It is, of course, important that you tailor any diet to the individual needs of your dog and their breed – all dogs require nutrients in differing amounts.

Recipe

Ingredients: 1 ½ cups brown rice, 1 tbsp. olive oil, 3 lbs. ground turkey, 3 cups chopped baby spinach, 2 carrots – shredded, 1 zucchini – shredded, ½ cup frozen peas.

Method:

• Cook the rice according to the instructions on the package.
• In a large pot, heat the oil, and then add the ground turkey for about 5 minutes, helping it crumble by breaking it up with a wooden spoon.
• Stir in the spinach, carrots, zucchini, and peas, and then add the brown rice.
• Heat the mixture through completely, ensuring the spinach is fully wilted and the frozen peas are heated right through.
• Allow to cool completely, and then divide into portion sizes depending on the nutrition intake requirements of your canine friend!

A Fishy Dish for Feline Friends

Dogs often get all the attention when it comes to homemade pet food, but cats are in just as much need of good quality, healthy meals! Cats have a very different diet than dogs as they would naturally eat a higher proportion of meat and find it more difficult to digest vegetables. This recipe harnesses all the benefits of oily fish to give any cat luscious soft fur and to keep their joints supple!

Recipe

Ingredients: 1 cup canned (unsalted) oily fish (mackerel, sardines, salmon, trout all work well), 1 tbsp. sunflower seed oil, 1 tbsp. cooked brown rice or cooked oatmeal, 2 tbsp. cooked carrot – mashed, 2 tbsp. chicken broth.

Method:

• Place all ingredients in a food processor.
• Pulse until a “cat food” consistency is reached – where most of the ingredients are mixed together well.
• Serve immediately.
• Extra can be kept for up to 3 days in the refrigerator or frozen and then defrosted at a later date.

Easy Homemade Doggy Treats

We all love giving our dogs treats, but sometimes it can be bittersweet when they’re begging for them but we know it’s not good for their health to overload them with store-bought doggy biscuits. This next recipe is a quick and easy way to make a relatively healthy doggy biscuit at home!

Ingredients: 2 ½ cups whole wheat flour, 1 tsp. salt, 1 egg, 1 tsp. beef stock granules, ½ cup boiling water.

Method:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Dissolve the stock in hot water.
• Add all the ingredients to this and mix together.
• Knead the mixture until a dough forms and then until it forms an evenly colored ball.
• Roll dough on a surface until it’s about ½ an inch thick, and then cut into your desired shapes!
• Place each biscuit on a lightly greased baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes.
• Allow to cool before serving!

Salmon Kitty Treats

For cats, the process is a little simpler! Cats will love these easy salmon treats that only include three ingredients.

Ingredients: 1 can of salmon, 2 eggs, flour.

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
• Blend the salmon in a food processor until it is well-chopped.
• Add the eggs, and then blend on a low speed and keep adding flour until a dough forms.
• Roll out the dough to ½ an inch in thickness and cut into your desired shapes.
• Place the treats on a baking sheet and cook for 20 minutes.
• Allow to cool and then serve!

Our four-legged friends deserve more than just mass-produced, chemical-filled pet food. These recipes are brilliant ways to incorporate healthy yet tasty food into your pet’s diet, without breaking the bank! If you’d like to stock up on ingredients for making the best food your pet will ever eat, head down to NetCost Market where we stock the highest quality ingredients for you and your furry friends!