Soft Foods Recommendations

I have TMJ also and I stay away from nuts, hard bagels and anything that would require extra chewing.

I should add that the best relief I got was from my chiropractor. There have been several times when my jaw/bite was almost an inch out of alignment and that was extremely painful. The dentist gave me a mouth guard that did nothing. Surgery was never recommended to me, but I wouldn't have done it anyway.

Yogurt, mashed sweet and regular potatoes, smoothies, oatmeal, bananas, applesauce

Oh you poor thing.

Israeli couscous (pearled couscous) is a different sort of option. You can find it sometimes with rice/couscous (often in a plastic container) or definitely in the Kosher food section (sometimes in an orange plastic bag from a brand name I forget, or in a box). It's larger than regular couscous and cooks in 10 minutes in either water or broth. Chop up some grape tomatoes and cucumber (peel it if the skin bothers you), add parsley, mint if you have it and like it, rice wine vinegar and olive oil. Eat it warm, or chill it an eat it like regular pasta salad. The smaller grains are often easier than regular pasta.

Quiche? Use the store-bought crusts, 8 ounces of Swiss, 3 eggs (or 2 plus some of those egg whites in the carton), 1 cup half & half or light cream, and about 8 ounces of the frozen vegetable of your choice (spinach, broccoli, asparagus) thawed but not cooked again, and put it all in the food processor to grind it up. My food processor can leak if there's too much liquid so I do everything but the cream, then add about half the cream, and then add the rest either in the pie shell itself or in a bowl, then dump into the pie shell and bake about 1 hour at 350.

Mashed potatoes? You could jazz them up with sour cream and herbs or paprika, and could even bake them in the skins (which would be too tough for you to eat though). If you are looking for protein, get some soft tofu and add it to ricotta/cottage cheese mix that you use for manicotti or stuffed shells, or spread it on a lasagna noodle with some chopped frozen spinach (don't even bother to defrost), and roll it up, cover it with some sauce, and heat.

You could try stir fry without the crunchy vegetables - use firm cubed tofu and fry that in oil (i use a little sesame oil and the rest canola), then add diced peppers (stir fry for a few minutes) and mushrooms (just for a minute or two), and maybe some bamboo shoots (heat through) with some soy sauce/chicken broth mixture. You could top with bean sprouts.

Black beans and small navy beans might be manageable if you cook them really soft. Google refried bean soup too - you get the protein with nothing to chew.

I make a really nice mac & cheese with Fontina & Parmesan plus a white sauce (Béchamel) with bay leaves and thyme. It's from the Vegetarian Epicure cookbook and is delicious, but it takes a little time. With a new baby, I'm not sure if you're in the mood. Message me if you want the recipe. It's pretty savory and it keeps well over a few days.

American chop suey? Ground meat, cooked pasta, sauce, maybe some onions and whatever other veggies you cook enough to make soft.

Good luck!

Fruit smoothies, yogurt, risotto (any version without a lot of chunky stuff), very ripe mango (if you can find it), bananas, well-cooked apples, creamed spinach, butternut squash puree, sweet potato puree, soft tofu with soy sauce and thinly sliced green onion and grated ginger, polenta topped with warm chopped tomato (no peel) and roasted garlic and herbs and grated parmesan... If I think of more ideas, I'll post them.

Just had a root canal - so I'm doing a lot of soft foods right now.
Soup - any sort of broth will do - you can dip bread in it and eat that too.
I'm having egg drop soup tonight and I had butternut squash soup last night.
Soft mashed potatoes (or sweet potatoes, or butternut squash)
sauted mushroom and onions can be pretty soft (zucchini, too).
yogurt
Oatmeal (or cream of wheat, or grits)
jello
pudding
smoothies - as long as they aren't too thick (I don't know if sucking too hard will strain your jaws)
really well done mac n cheese (so noodles are soft and not chewy)

Just went through this with my son...smoothie (try to add protein powder to satisfy) mashed potatoes with our without melted cheese, yogurt, jello, tomato soup, and maybe gumbo? Hope you feel better soon!

My sons oral surgeon recommended things like applesauce, yogurt, overcooked pasta, mashed potatoes or Cauliflower (pretty much anything that can be mashed) ect.

Mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, roasted winter squashes (acorn, butternut), mac and cheese, ravioli, pasta with bolognese, smoothies, yogurt, chili, ice cream, rice, quinoa, cous-cous, ground chicken, beef or turkey cooked in some sort of sauce...Jell-O, pudding, applesauce, oatmeal, cream of wheat...

Oatmeal, pudding, jello, spaghetti, butter noddles, stuff that you can mush up with your tongue and not have to chew and chew and chew or smash with your fork or chop with a table top chopping tool.

I cook my pasta done, not al dente, and then I use 2 knives and cross cut it up for the kids. Did this in my child care center from the toddler room up. For the babies on table food I used my Pampered Chef Food Chopper, the one you whack on top of the plunger a few times. I chopped it 15 times for the babies.

You can cut it up enough that you don't even have to chew anything. It won't be an over processed lump of goo but the pieces of anything will be small enough that minimal, if any, chewing is enough.

You can eat anything you want if you get the pieces small enough that you can swallow it okay.

https://www.pamperedchef.com/search-browse-results?search...

Grits, mashed potatoes, risotto...

Smoothies are good, soft toast, puddings, yogurt, etc. Mashed potatoes, soft bananas, applesauce.

I hope it's not too painful just after you had your baby.

Yogurt, smoothies, ice cream (!) tender fish, pasta, rice, refried beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, polenta, risotto, oatmeal, applesauce.
Feel better soon!!!