Alcohol in Cooking

Can babies eat food cooked with alcohol?

It’s best to leave alcohol out of your baby’s food. If a dish has simmered for a long time, a small amount is OK, but cooking doesn’t burn it all off. USDA measurements show that wine or beer stirred into a hot liquid keeps about 85% of its alcohol, and a flambé keeps 75%. Simmering for 15 minutes leaves 40%, an hour leaves 25%, two hours 10%, and two and a half hours about 5%. In a no-bake dessert stored overnight, about 70% remains.^[1]

From 6 months, a stew, braise or ragù that has simmered for an hour or more is OK now and then. A splash of wine spread across a family-sized pot leaves very little in a baby’s portion. Quick pan sauces made with wine, beer-battered fish, and desserts with alcohol added after cooking, like tiramisu, rum cake, trifle or brandy butter, aren’t for babies or toddlers.^[1]

There’s no amount of alcohol that’s good for a baby. When you can, take out your baby’s portion before the wine goes in, or use stock instead.

Choking risk

Alcohol in cooking is a low choking risk - it's a liquid ingredient, and the texture question belongs to whatever it's cooked into.

Prep the finished dish to suit baby's age - soft braised meat shredded, vegetables cut small. See how to serve for what applies at each age.

Allergens

Alcohol itself is not a food allergen, but what it's made from can matter.^[2]

Beer and ale usually contain barley and often wheat, so a beer-based dish counts for a wheat allergy or gluten-free diet. Wine contains sulfites, which aren't one of the nine major allergens but are declared on labels and can bother asthmatic children in large amounts - a trace in a long-cooked stew isn't that. Some wines are fined with egg white or milk protein, a label note rather than a real exposure.^[3]

Food safety

The idea that alcohol cooks off completely isn’t quite right. Alcohol boils at a lower temperature than water, but because it’s mixed into the dish, it leaves slowly. According to the USDA, about 25% is left after an hour of simmering, and about 85% when it’s stirred in at the end. Long cooking in an open, bubbling pot removes the most.^[1]

For scale: a small glass of wine (about 3.4 oz) has roughly 2½ teaspoons of pure alcohol. Simmered for an hour in a stew for four, it leaves about half a teaspoon in the whole pot, so less than a quarter teaspoon in one adult portion, and even less in a baby’s. The same wine stirred into a sauce at the end leaves about 2 teaspoons in the pot, which is why quick dishes are the ones to skip.^[1]

Vanilla extract works the same way. In the US it’s at least 35% alcohol, so it’s fine baked into food, but use alcohol-free vanilla in anything uncooked. And supermarket “cooking wine” has a lot of added salt, which is another reason to keep it out of baby’s food.^[4][5]