The Easy Way to Make Dog Treats at Home

Brew yourself a cup of coffee and don’t make plans for 30 minutes (let’s be real: more like 45 minutes after you’re finished cleaning up). It’s less stressful to commit to the task of making homemade dog treats when you aren’t rushing things or trying to squeeze it into an already chore-packed day. 

On a bright Sunday morning, with a home-brewed latte by my side, I added to a large mixing bowl four eggs, one mashed overripened banana, and ¼ cup of bacon grease that I retrieved after frying up a few strips of bacon while Blake smelled the aroma and salivated. The recipe also mentions that you can use coconut oil as a substitute, but I avoided it based on Animal Poison Control’s recommendations. I then added 1.5 cups of all-purpose flour, 1 cup of cornmeal (the recipe recommends almond flour, but I couldn’t find this at my local grocery store), 1 cup of old-fashioned oats, and 3 tablespoons of peanut butter, for which you can substitute almond butter to keep the treats peanut-free. The combined ingredients seemed a little thick to attempt to mix by hand, so I opted to use my electric mixer. A few minutes later, the dough was perfect. 

I am not known for my dough-wielding skills, so I’m not pulling your leg when I tell you it was easy-peasy to spread parchment paper on my kitchen table, throw a little flour down to keep the dough from sticking, and spread the dough out with my hands—no rolling pin necessary.

I scored these adorable dog treat cookie cutters and used them to turn the dough into the shapes of dogs, bones, and dog houses. I was able to make 54 dog treats (admittedly, it would have been more had I used the rolling pin to thin out the dough). My final step was lightly spraying cooking spray on Magic Mill dehydrator racks, spacing the dog treats out on the racks, and sliding the racks into the dehydrator. I added Magic Mill’s crumb tray to the bottom of the dehydrator to pick up any dough debris that might fall through the racks.