Homemade cat food
Lamb Heart Taurine Bites
Lamb heart is one of the richest natural sources of taurine there is — these lightly cooked bites turn it into a nutrient-dense reward cats find hard to resist.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time
- 20 min
- Makes
- About 20 bites
🧺 Ingredients
- 150 g lamb heart, trimmed of fat and any large vessels
- 1 tsp olive oil, for the pan
👩🍳 Method
- Rinse the lamb heart, trim away the fatty top and any thick vessels, and cut into small even cubes.
- Warm the olive oil in a non-stick pan over a medium heat.
- Add the heart cubes and cook for 4–6 minutes, turning, until just cooked through and no longer pink inside.
- Tip onto kitchen paper to drain and cool completely.
- Serve one or two bites as a treat, and refrigerate the rest promptly.
Nutrition: Heart is technically a muscle, so it is packed with the taurine cats need for healthy heart function and vision, along with iron, B vitamins and CoQ10. Lamb also gives cats sensitive to poultry a different protein to enjoy.
📝 Notes
Store in the fridge for up to three days or freeze in small batches for up to two months. Heart is an organ meat, so keep it to a treat-sized share of the daily diet rather than a main meal. Introduce gradually to avoid an upset stomach.
⚕️ Before you cook for your cat
- Homemade food must be balanced. Cats need taurine, and deficiency causes heart and eye disease.
- Treat recipes are supplements to a complete diet, not a replacement for it.
- Check any new ingredient against the toxic-foods list, and ask your vet before switching diets.