An easy recipe and guidelines for making homemade raw dog food that you can tweak as necessary to what best fits your dog.
For as health conscious as I am about what kind of foods I put in my own body, I have to admit for the better part of six of her seven years, I pretty much fed Ginger the equivalent of fast food to humans.
Sure, it was the good fast food but after awhile, even Chick-Fil-A isn’t “healthy” any more if you know what I mean.
Of course, occasionally, I made her homemade pumpkin dog treats but more often than not her food was anything but homemade.
Then one day earlier this year it was like a switch got flipped.
The guy who sold us our water softener system was sitting in our kitchen and as we looked over models trying to figure out which one made the most sense, the sales guy and I started talking about dog food.
He explained how he starting feeding a raw food diet for his adult dogs and how their energy levels were through the roof (not that Ginger needs help in that department), their coats were shinier than ever and their teeth in great shape.
It made sense.
I completely buy into the same theories from a human perspective, why wouldn’t it be the same for dogs?
So, next trip to Petco, I was forking over some serious money (like 3 times the price of dry food) for frozen raw dog food patties and giving this whole thing a shot.
The first meal I gave her the homemade raw dog food, she came running back into the kitchen after licking the bowl clean as if she was begging for more.
As I was preparing the second meal and she saw me take the food out of the refrigerator, she just about lost it running back and forth between the kitchen and the laundry room (where we feed her), her legs moving faster than her body could on the wood floor running into chairs and walls like a lunatic.
It appeared she liked it.
At $25 for 3 pounds of food however, I knew immediately that wasn’t going to happen and I needed to start looking into some homemade dog food recipes.
Sorry, pup, I don’t eat out every day either.
So, I got to researching.
And it turns out, making your own raw dog food isn’t really that hard for dog owners.
It’s a bit disgusting as you see raw meat and organs swirl around in your food processor, but it’s not difficult by any means.
And yes, dogs can eat raw meat.
I think that’s the number one question I get when talk about this with people so I figured we’d get that out of the way first. Raw meals are not only a healthy choice for you dog, it’s what they were born to eat. Commercial dog food is something big industry made up in the middle of the last century along with the rise of human processed foods. Like in humans, this transition has lead to a slew of health issues for our pets and an obesity epidemic that matches that of their owners.
And if you’re wondering what else dogs can eat, check out my other site – What Can My Dog Eat?
Raw Dog Food Recipe Proportions (BARF diet)
The BARF diet stands for “biologically appropriate raw food diet”. Under this raw dog food diet, a dog’s diet should be high in protein, moderate in fat with a minimal amount of carbohydrates. When broken down into percentages, it will look something like this:
- 70% muscle meat with fat
- 10% raw edible bones (chicken feet can be great for this)
- 10% organs
- 5% fresh vegetables/fruits
- 5% dairy/supplements/nuts/seeds
Using those simple proportions, you can pretty much make up your own recipe from whatever you have on hand or find on sale at the store or.
Meat with fat: I will usually buy ground meat of some sort for this just because it’s easier than breaking down other cuts. Beef, chicken, pork, bison, gamey meats, etc. Muscle meat provides essential amino acids and vitamins for the dog. If your dog has any food allergies, it will likely be to a specific protein. Choose a protein type that works best for your dog based on their health conditions.
Bones: Raw edible bones are an important part of the BARF diet for essential nutrients like calcium and phosphorous.
Organs: The good news is organs are cheap. The bad news is organs are kind of gross. Nothing like some slimy chicken livers getting pulsed up in your food processor. Liver and kidneys are the two easiest to find in the grocery store. Liver is also the most nutrient dense organ there is providing fat-soluble vitamin A and other water-soluble vitamins.
Vegetables/fruits: Ginger happens to hate raw vegetables and fruit. She’s literally spit them out before or eaten around them if we’ve tried to feed her some in her bowl. So I choose sweet things here like apples, carrots and sweet potatoes that get processed real fine so she can’t tell. Avoid onions, grapes and raisins as they can cause kidney failure in dogs. It’s also a myth that vegetables provide no nutritional value to dogs. While they’re not necessary to support healthy dogs, they do provide added minerals and nutrients for better health overall.
Dairy/supplements: Whole eggs (shell and all) are a great source of calcium. I’ll also use some plain yogurt to help bind the patties. Supplement wise, ground flaxseed meal, olive oil and fish oil are great additions too. You can also choose to feed your dogs sardines for the healthy omega-3 benefits similar to olive oil.
How much raw food do I feed my dog?
This question has come up a lot in the comments so I figured I’d address it in the post.
The general guideline for adult dogs is to feed a balanced diet between 2-3% of their bodyweight. So, for a 50-pound dog that would be between 1 to 1.5 pounds of food per day.
Influencing factors on determining feed amount
- Activity Level
- Adjustments for weight gain or weight loss (the graphic in this post is helpful in that regard although discussing with your vet is probably best)
- Life Stage
Activity level
Be honest with this assessment. Is your individual dog mostly a lounger that hangs out inside all day with a few backyard jaunts or is it a truly active dog like a sporting breed that hunts, a working dog like a police K9 or your pal that goes hiking with you multiple times a week for hours on end?
Human tendency is to over emphasize/assess activity levels.
Adjustments for weight gain or weight loss
Simply put, does your dog need to lose weight? Gain weight? Maintain? The answer to those questions will help you figure out which end of that 2-3% spectrum you want to start with when starting a raw food diet.
Life stage
Notice I said adult dogs when referring to the 2-3% of body weight for food amounts. Puppies are an entirely different story as they’re quickly growing and need more calories to support that growth.
There are two approaches for feeding puppies:
- 2-3% of their expected adult weight (obviously easier to figure out with a pure bred dog)
- 5-6% of their current puppy weight – adjusting with the dog as it grows
Senior dogs shouldn’t have drastically different needs than a middle-aged dog unless of course, activity level impacts them.
Pregnant dogs are something you should speak to your vet or a veterinary nutritionist about in determining the best amount of raw food to support a healthy pregnancy.
Making our dog homemade raw dog food has just become a part of the weekly routine now.
We do half of the homemade raw dog food recipe and half dry food which we upgraded as well to a grain-free feed with ingredients that make me comfortable when I read the back of the bag.
Because digestion rates of dry food (kibble) and raw dog food differ, we now feed one meal completely raw and one meal completely dry rather than mixing the two as seen in these pictures.
It’s a 30 minute weekly commitment that has made both her and I incredibly happy. Easy raw food dog recipes like this are a small price to pay to have complete control over the nutrition our dogs deserve.
Nothing can beat the look she gives me when she sees me reach into the fridge with her bowl in my other hand. And when I see her little stub waging ferociously from the lunatic excitement she has for every meal now, it’s a heartwarming feeling.
Knowing time is precious when you have a seven year old dog, something as simple as good food which I have the ability to control just isn’t even up for debate any more.
The Easiest Homemade Raw Dog Food Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 pounds ground beef
- 4 ounces chicken livers
- 1 carrot, chopped
- 1 small apple, cored
- 1/2 cup baby spinach
- 2 whole eggs, including shell
- 1/2 cup plain yogurt
- 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
Instructions
- Add the carrot, apple and spinach to a food processor and process until finely chopped.
- Add the remaining ingredients except the ground beef and process again until well combined.
- Transfer the mixture into a large bowl. Add the ground beef and mix together with a spatula or your hands.
- Form into patties about the size of your palm and place on a parchment lined baking sheet.
- Freeze patties until solid, transfer to a storage container or plastic bag and keep frozen.
- Remove one day’s worth of patties from the freezer the night before and place in the refrigerator to thaw before serving.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Gina Matsoukas is an AP syndicated writer. She is the founder, photographer and recipe developer of Running to the Kitchen — a food website focused on providing healthy, wholesome recipes using fresh and seasonal ingredients. Her work has been featured in numerous media outlets both digital and print, including MSN, Huffington post, Buzzfeed, Women’s Health and Food Network.
I would like to make chicken wings meal with bones and all can I make this recipe with the chicken wings with bones and all.? Just found out that bones are crucial in any raw diet.
Thank you.
Hi I’d love to give this a go- what size are the patties and how much do you give your dogs? (Based on their weight?)
The comments go back to 2014 and I’m wondering if there are folks still discussing the dog food recipe and if there are some updates I’d like to hear about it. I’m going to use the recipe as a base to make the dog food but I’ll add green beans and broccoli since I know that green veggies are better. Just checking if anyone is currently using this great recipe.
I just came across this site today, while looking for some new raw keto recipes and the one on here is keto, but in my little opinion, it falls short on what a raw fed diet requires. Maybe there is more on the site and I just haven’t found it – so no offense to the site managers, glad they are doing what they can, cause raw feeding is the only way to go.
First, your dog needs at least 3 different sources of protein – mine get as many as I can find.
Right now I have rabbit, beef, llama, buffalo, turkey, goat and lamb in my garage freezer and I feed whole, relatively small, wild caught fish at least 3 times a month, but I live in Santa Monica, so I buy that fresh. Sounds like a lot, but I’m sure not rich, by any stretch. I just never have to take my dogs to the vet, get their teeth cleaned, I do not vaccinate, cause they have stellar immune systems and that’s a lot of saved money to put toward nutrition. I use to do an annual blood work-up, but they came back so good, year-after-year, that I don’t even bother anymore.
I do not grind the food or buy ground food (usually too much fat in store bought varieties) – and dogs need the mental stimulation and jaw exercise provided by giving them meaty bones or chunks of meat and it cleans their teeth.
Offal is off in the above recipe too. Liver is a must have, but 5% to 10% should be liver (grass fed/pastured only and beef liver is by far the most nutrient dense) and another 5% to 10% needs to be a second organ source, which can be: Kidney, Spleen, Pancreas, Thymus, Brain, Testicles and/or Eyeballs (I know some of this grosses you out, but you don’t have to eat it, just need to buy it), gizzards, hearts, lungs are not organ meat.
Two of my for Pit mixes enjoy true whole prey, which usually consists of baby animals or grown rabbits that somehow died – but not from illness – befriend a rancher or, as I do look for someone who is a rancher and sells grass fed meat for humans, they too will have babies that died. -Usually it’s a whole grown animal buy, but even then, you can split it with friends and all the stuff they would never eat (like eyeballs, brains and testicles, are yours for free!). Back to the prey – my dogs just take the whole dang thing – usually a baby goat or lamb and do their thing – fur and all and they both always start with the head.
This is usually two days worth of eating and you have your choice to put the rest in a plastic bag and refrigerate it (what I do) or they will eat it as is, with ants on it, then next day. That’s worse than eating eyeballs to me. Definitely an outside meal, so if you live in an apartment, you can breath a sigh of relief about now :o). Haha
This site is subbing egg shells for bones, but bones do so much more than provide calcium.
I don’t see anything about fat – Fat is healthy for your dog. It helps with nerve and immune function and is critical for skin health. You don’t want the fat to be much more than 10% and certainly no more than 20% of the diet because it’s so calorie dense. But this doesn’t mean you don’t feed fat. Your dog needs fat but not so much of it that it robs him of other important nutrients. Also, keep in mind, if you are not feeding grass fed/pastured muscle meat, toxins from feed lot type animal feeding practices, in what becomes your dogs’ food (or yours) those toxins are stored primarily in the fat, so in the case of buying cheapest (which is still light years better than the crap that goes into dog kibble) meats, trim as much fat as you can from that meat and instead supplement with Whole avocados, hemp seed, ground flax seed, coconut oil…
Hope this helps.
Fabulous, @Marcia Kirschbaum! Thanks for the terrific additional information and your not little nor insignificant perspective and insights into feeding our animals well! This is very helpful and should imo be incorporated into the original article.
@Marcia Kirschbaum, hi, I am in Redondo Beach. Where are you able to find these meat and organ sources?
Just attended Camp Unleashed in the N. GA Blue Ridge Mountains. Was amazed to learn about raw diet! It’s like switching a human from a pure McDonald’s diet to a fresh food, healthymeal plan. Thank goodness my corgi is 10 mo so I can switch her off her old diet (high end, but still kibble food) & get her onto a raw diet early in life. She’s 27# so a Raw diet won’t break the bank. Is raw bacon is on the acceptable raw meat list?
No! No bacon!!!
Hello, I have a 75lbs 1-year-old german shepherd. How many patties/dry mixture do you suggest per day and for each meal?
I have a 2 y/o rescue terrier mix and just adopted a small 8 y/o rescue yorkie mix. She had horrible teeth, gums and bone loss. She also had sinus infection from having so much bacteria in her mouth for so long. We had all of her teeth removed. She was found with her deceased owner so we have no history on her. We have tried several high-end wet food she refuses it. I have added soft veggies and she will eat a little
She really prefers the grain free Zignature that my other dog eats. Would it be ok to add some organ meats and some plain yogurt to the dry food and just put all of it in the processes together. They can both stay on it plus it will be easier for our little endentulous girl to eat. Thank you so much.
Thank you for the recipe and the encouragement! I have a 4 month old labradoodle and he’s my first dog. I’m feeding highend no grain kibble but a) he’s kinda picky and doesn’t eat a lot and b) I know food is the first and best medicine so your story about switching really resonated with me. So a couple times now I’ve tossed him a raw chicken neck or heart and he LOVES it and I’d love to just go raw but my family objects! And I actually understand – my 11 year old daughter is a germaphobe and she and her dad correctly point out that even if I do safe handling, Astro does not! After he’s done eating, he has raw meat residue on his face and often his paws as well. Any thoughts?? Thanks!
@Linda, this is for your pups health. Maybe your daughter knowing this will help with the germaphobe anxieties. When pup is done eating wash his face…just like a messy kid.
Can a raw diet help my dogs colitis and IBS??
I don’t see many replies on this site and I just came across it today, for the first time, so haven’t looked at many, but hopefully someone’s paying attention and helping people figure this out, cause doing it wrong can be worse than feeding crappy kibble. Your post is over a year old and no reply!
With that said, if you just do a quick Google search on raw feeding, it’s head spinning how much is out there and tons of social media groups too. Then you really need to figure out what version makes the most sense for your dogs needs.
I am a bit versed in raw food diets as I’ve been at it for over 12 years. Yes, a raw diet will certainly help. No starchy veggies though – sweet potatoes, rice, quinoa, etc. Starch turns to sugar. Sugar causes inflammation and that’s what IBS is, so you need to deal with the inflammation of the digestive tract before ANY food can be absorbed.
We tried this recipe after paying over $50 every two weeks to feed our two dogs, one medium and one small. It’s a big hit! They LOVE IT! We were initially concerned about switching food due to or smallest dog’s stomach issues (we were on puke lookout all night) but both dogs did just fine. At only $0.30 cents for carrots, $1.49 for spinach, $1.79 for yogurt and $4 for a few batch worths of organ meat, the price is so much better! (Make sure to freeze additional organ meat) Bonus, it is the same texture as the store bought raw food but smells a whole lot better!
Do you add any other meat or just the organ meat?
Thanks!
I am relooking at how I have been feeding my dog homemade dog food because I came home after 3 days away to a sick doggie with anal gland issues. I eventually stumbled onto your blog and love it. Already printed it and will save this to my bookmarks. Thank you so much for the simplicity of it.