Homemade cat food
Tuna & Pumpkin Frozen Lick Pops
A hot-weather licking treat: a little tuna blitzed with plain pumpkin and water, frozen into ice-cube-sized pops that a cat can slowly lick down to cool off and stay hydrated on a sweltering day.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time
- 10 min + freezing
- Makes
- 8–10 mini pops
🧺 Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons tuna in spring water, drained (not brine or oil)
- 1 tablespoon plain tinned pumpkin purée (100% pumpkin, no spices or filling)
- About 100 ml plain water or unsalted, onion-free bone broth
- An ice-cube tray or silicone mini-mould
👩🍳 Method
- Blend or mash the tuna, pumpkin and water together into a thin, pourable slurry.
- Push out any lumps so it pours cleanly, adding a splash more water if needed.
- Pour into the ice-cube tray, filling each well only part-way for bite-sized pops.
- Freeze for at least four hours until solid.
- Pop one out onto a saucer or lick mat and let your cat lick it on a warm day; return the rest to the freezer.
Nutrition: A strongly-scented, low-calorie way to sneak extra water into a cat during hot weather — the pumpkin adds gentle fibre and the tuna makes it irresistible, turning hydration into a game of licking rather than a bowl they ignore.
📝 Notes
A treat, not a meal — one small pop at a time, kept well under a tenth of daily calories, as oily fish is rich and too much tuna can crowd out balanced nutrition. Serve on a tiled floor or a mat, as it melts into a puddle. Choose tuna in spring water, never brine, oil, flavoured pouches or anything with onion or garlic. Offer the first one supervised so a cat unused to cold food does not gulp it, and skip frozen treats for cats with sensitive teeth.
⚕️ 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.