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The everyday default

Chicken with butternut & vegetables

Mild, familiar, easy. The starting point for most dogs — perfect for picky eaters, sensitive stomachs, and first-time home-cooks.

140 kcal / 100g ~60 min cook Serves 1 week
A bowl of cooked chicken thigh with butternut squash, broccoli, spinach and brown rice
Why this recipe

The reliable first recipe.

If you're new to home-cooking or your dog has a sensitive stomach, this is where to start. Chicken thigh is mild, easily digestible, and most dogs love it. Butternut squash is gentle on the gut, naturally sweet, and rich in beta-carotene. The vegetable mix balances the protein with fibre and vitamins.

This recipe is built for most healthy adult dogs at maintenance. It works as a daily rotation recipe or as your only recipe if your dog is happy with one option.

Ingredients

Heads up: all ingredient weights below are raw — what you buy and cook. Cooking and draining shrinks the batch, so the cooked amount you feed (shown in the scaler) is less than the total raw weight.

Pick how many days you’re cooking for below — the quantities scale to your dog’s daily portion. Use the scaled shopping list calculator for your specific dog's weight and meal plan.

Cooking for:

Quantities below scale automatically.

Protein

  • Chicken thigh, boneless skinless800g
  • Olive oil, extra virgin5 mL

Vegetables & carbs

  • Butternut squash, peeled & cubed175g
  • Carrot, diced65g
  • Cauliflower florets60g
  • Baby spinach (fresh or frozen)50g

Seasoning

  • Iodised table salt1.5 g

Supplement

  • The Premix17 g
The Premix note: The Premix supplies calcium, all vitamins, taurine, choline, DHA omega-3, and trace minerals that home-cooked food doesn't naturally cover at AAFCO levels. Dosed at 13.5 g per 1,000 kcal of finished food — the premix amount above scales with your batch size. Without it, the recipe is unbalanced. Join The Premix waitlist →

How to cook it

  1. Cube the chicken thigh. Peel and cube the butternut squash.
  2. Combine chicken, butternut, carrot and cauliflower in a pot with just enough water to cover.
  3. Simmer 18–20 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and the squash is fork-tender.
  4. Add the spinach for the last 2 minutes to wilt it through.
  5. Drain and cool to warm (not hot — heat destroys some vitamins).
  6. Stir in the premix and olive oil until evenly mixed.
  7. Portion into daily containers. Refrigerate up to 4 days, freeze the rest.

Storage & safety

Refrigerator: 4 days in airtight containers. Day 5 onwards, freeze it.

Freezer: Up to 3 months. Portion before freezing for easy thawing.

Defrosting: Overnight in the fridge. Never at room temperature — bacterial growth on raw-ish meat is a real risk.

Reheating: Optional, but if you do, just gently warm (don't microwave hot) — and add The Premix after warming, not before.

Talk to your vet first if your dog has: diabetes, pancreatitis history, kidney disease, liver disease, food allergies, or is a puppy, senior with mobility issues, pregnant or lactating. These recipes are designed for healthy adult dogs at maintenance, not a treatment plan.

Swaps & substitutions

Same-weight swaps that keep the recipe balanced. Do not swap the protein — each recipe's premix dose and fat balance is calibrated to its specific meat.

Butternut squashsweet potato, pumpkin, or parsnip — same weight (175 g)
Cauliflowerbroccoli or cabbage — same weight (60 g)
Baby spinachkale (de-stemmed) or silverbeet — same weight (50 g)
Olive oilavocado oil — same volume (5 mL). Not coconut oil.

Oils: measure in mL and stir into cooled food with the premix — never while hot (heat damages the omega-3 and the fat-soluble vitamins).

⚠ Never add these — toxic to dogs

Onion, garlic, leek, shallot, chives · grapes, raisins, sultanas · chocolate & cocoa · xylitol (in some peanut butters) · macadamia nuts · avocado flesh, skin & pit · cooked bones of any kind · processed/deli meats. These cause serious harm even in small amounts — keep them out of every batch.

Ready to cook for Teddy?

Get a scaled shopping list with exact quantities for your dog's weight and weekly portion plan.