Tomato Rasam for Babies During Cold and Cough

Tomato rasam for babies – a herbal tomato basil soup during cold and cough

Along with the start of winter, comes the season of cold and cough. It will be a tough time for we parents especially when our kids get cold or cough.

Being cranky or less active and refusing to eat is natural when your little one is sick. The main reason behind is that solid food doesn’t taste good when we are ill. So when sick it is really important to give your child foods that are both tempting for the taste buds and also help in a speedy recovery while boosting immunity.

The popular South Indian soup- tomato rasam or tomato basil soup is one such recipe that is best for your kid during winter season.

I am also adding a recipe for making rasam powder that can be prepared beforehand and can be used to make instant rasam.

Benefits of tomato rasam for babies and kids:

A simple tomato herbal rasam with a twist is tempting for your little one’s taste buds and healthy too. The benefits of tomato rasam for babies are as follows.

• Reduces cold and cough

Tomatoes are really good for common cold. The ingredients that go into tomato-rasam such as basil/ tulsi, pepper, jeera, garlic and turmeric have excellent power to cure cold and cough.

• Helps in digestion

A glass full of rasam is usually taken after a heavy lunch especially if you ate non-vegetarian food. The ingredients like hing, jeera and garlic that we use in rasam helps in easy digestion. So we can say that it is a herbal digene. 

How to include rasam in your kid’s daily menu?

Rasam is usually taken after a main course, especially if you ate non-vegetarian food. It can be taken as a soup or can be mixed with plain rice.

Rasam can also be mixed with any boiled vegetable mash or dal mash that you usually feed your baby. I even use rasam with idly and dosa 🙂

I should say that a combination of plain dal, rice, ghee, and rasam is just heavenly.

How to prepare herbal tomato rasam for babies?

If a simple tomato rasam is so tasty and healthy, why not make it now itself?

Wash tomato and basil. Blend peeled garlic, tulasi/ basil leaves, tomato, pepper pods, jeera and ajwain to a fine paste. Heat oil in a kadai and splutter mustard seeds. Add the paste to it and sautee for a few minutes. Add the required amount of water and let it boil.

  

Add hing, turmeric powder and salt to the boiled rasam. Once the raw smell goes off, turn of the gas. Healthy herbal rasam is ready.

This rasam can be given to babies aged 8 months and above. You may omit the salt for babies less than 1 year.

How to make instant rasam powder?

To make things easier you can make rasam powder and use it while making rasam.

There are many rasam mix and rasam powder available in the market. Here is my style of rasam powder for toddlers and adults as well.

Ingredients for instant rasam powder:

• Jeera or cumin seeds – 5 teaspoon
• Black pepper balls – 5 teaspoon
• Coriander seeds/ whole dhania – 3 teaspoon
• Hing powder/ asafeortida/ kaya podi – ¼ teaspoon
• Curry leaves/ karivepila – a few

Instructions to prepare instant rasam powder:

• Separately dry roast all ingredients, except curry leaves, for just a few seconds.
• Dry roast curry leaves for about 1 minute.
• When all the ingredients cool down, powder it using a mixer jar.

Store it in an airtight container.

While preparing rasam with this instant rasam powder, simply add 1-2 teaspoons of the powder to the tomato puree and water. Let it boil and switch off the gas when the raw smell is gone.

Instant rasam with home made instant rasam powder is ready. You can also use the water of the cooked dal instead of the plain water.

With the above measurements you can prepare rasam almost seven times. We make rasam daily so we usually prepare rasam powder for one week.

NOTE

• While making rasam don’t add too much of basil/tulsi leaves and ajwain as the rasam can become sour in taste.
• You can use ghee or butter for making rasam (not advisable when your baby has fever or cold).
• If you have powders of jeera and pepper, you can add it when adding turmeric powder.
• When you give this rasam for toddlers you can also add coriander leaves at last.
• To tempt your baby’s taste buds add a little jaggery to this tomato rasam at the end.
• When making it for adults, tamarind can be used instead of one tomato.
• Well-prepared rasam lasts longer than one day with out getting spoiled and can be used for a day or two. So you can always save the left over rasam for the next day.

You can also read about kaachiya velichenna for babies during cold and 7 healthy soups for babies.

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