Try our festival recipes at home!
Try our quick and easy recipes for a balanced raw or cooked diet for adult cats, or some tasty treats.
Presented at the 2026 Cat Lovers Festival by Dr Becca Leung and Dr Meredith Wall.
Homemade diet recipes
Recipe One: Kangaroo mince with diced pork loin and CompleteMe Feline
This affordable and easy raw recipe is the perfect place to start for most cats. Kangaroo and pork are highly palatable meats, and both are easy to buy from supermarkets or your local butcher.
The recipe will cost approximately $4.30 per day to feed a 5kg cat (250 kcal per day), and takes 5 minutes to prepare.
Ingredients
100 grams 'Kroo' kangaroo mince (2% fat)
85 grams diced boneless pork loin steaks (10% fat)
0.5 teaspoon of psyllium husk (no additives)
1.25 teaspoon of CompleteMe Feline (3.9 grams)
You can use either:
CompleteMe Feline - Chicken & duck
CompleteMe Feline - Beef & kangaroo
Optional:
1 tsp of sardine or mackerel fillets (canned in spring water)
Crumbled freeze-dried treats for extra appeal and tastiness
Directions
- Finely dice the pork loin steak into small bite-size pieces. Include the fat, but make sure it is finely chopped.
- Weigh out 100 grams of Kroo mince, and mix it with the diced pork loin.
- Add the CompleteMe Feline, psyllium husk, and 1 -2 teaspoons of water or bone broth. Mix and portion into 2-3 meals, and refrigerate until needed.
Makes enough for an average 5 kg cat, for one day. Provides 250 kcal.
Storage, safety and batch-prep
Do not add CompleteMe Feline to any commercial cat food, or use with any other nutritional supplements (containing vitamins and/or minerals).
However, it is fine to feed a balanced commercial diet along with a balanced homemade diet. For example, 50% canned food and 50% homemade raw diet.
For raw meat, freeze for 10 days before use to destroy parasites like Toxoplasma. In areas with Trichinella, please freeze pork for 3 weeks before use. In areas with highly pathogenic avian influenza, we recommend avoiding raw poultry.
Larger batches can be made and frozen for convenience. Keep refrigerated food for 3 days, and frozen food for 3-4 months. Please discard any uneaten food after 30 minutes.
Recipe Two: Chicken and turkey with CompleteMe Feline
This simple cooked recipe is really affordable to make, costing only $3.30 per day for an average 5 kg cat. You don't need to chop or grind the meat yourself, making it really fast to prepare.
It's a great time to try a cooked chicken diet, because sadly it may become unsafe to feed a raw chicken diet in the near future, due to the spread of bird flu in Australia. Steaming the meat also preserves moisture in the diet, which is great for health and also makes the food more palatable for most cats.
Ingredients
100 grams lean chicken mince (2% fat) OR finely diced skinless and boneless chicken breast
90 grams 'Steggles' turkey mince (6% fat)
1 teaspoon of finely chopped kale leaves (optional - adds some extra fibre and antioxidants)
1.25 teaspoon of CompleteMe Feline (3.9 grams)
You can use either:
CompleteMe Feline - Chicken & duck
CompleteMe Feline - Beef & kangaroo
Optional:
1 tsp of sardine or mackerel fillets (canned in spring water)
Crumbled freeze-dried treats for extra appeal and tastiness
Directions
- Weigh out 100 grams of chicken mince, and mix it with 90 grams of turkey mince.
- Add the CompleteMe Feline, and finely chopped kale. Mix well.
- Set up a pot with water and a steamer rack. Weigh out 65 grams of the meat mix and shape into a patty (1-1.5 cm thick). Place in a small flat bowl.
- Pop the bowl and patty on the steamer rack, and steam for 6.5 to 7 minutes, which should be adequate for the centre of the patty to reach 75 degrees.
- Remove the bowl carefully from the steamer (use oven mitts!), then allow to cool until just warm.
- Gently break up the patty into tiny bites with a fork. The liquid will slowly be reabsorbed by the meat as it cools. Don't drain it off - cats usually love it!
Makes enough for one meal for an average 5 kg cat. Repeat 2 times with remaining meat mix to make 2 more meals (should be enough food for one day), or refrigerate/freeze remaining mix until needed.
Alternatively, you can steam one large patty (1.5 cm thick) for 10-12 minutes, and divide into 3 equal amounts for 3 meals. 3 meals will provide 250 kcal.
Combine chicken mince, turkey mince, kale (optional) and CompleteMe Feline in a bowl and mix well.
Shape 65 grams of meat mixture into a small patty and steam for 6.5-7 minutes or until cooked through.
Allow the patty to cool after steaming, and to reabsorb the liquid in the bowl. When cool, break apart into bite size pieces with a fork and serve!
What are some of the benefits of a homemade diet for cats?
No unwanted additives
A homemade diet allows you to avoid additives of your choice that can be common in commercial diets. For example:
- Gums and thickeners
- Water-soluble phosphates like dipotassium phosphate
- Tuna
- Artificial flavours
More protein, less fat
Some "meat-rich" commercial canned diets for cats are actually quite low in protein, and very high in fat. Fat is cheap, whereas lean meat is expensive. By including lean meats in your cat's homemade diet, you can feed a higher protein diet that is closer to what small wild cats evolved to eat.
Just as cats didn't evolve to naturally eat carbohydrate, they didn't evolve to eat extremely high fat, low protein diets either.
Better dental health
Canned diets are beneficial because they are high in moisture, helping to improve urinary tract health. However, the soft mushy texture of many canned diets does nothing to promote chewing or gnawing.
By using chunks and strips of lean meat in your cat's homemade diet, you can encourage chewing. The action of chewing helps to remove plaque from teeth and improve dental health.
CompleteMe® Feline - Chicken & duck
Meal completer supplement with essential vitamins, amino acids and minerals, to enrich and create complete and balanced homemade diets for healthy adult cats.
Chicken & duck formula with added lactic acid for reduced plaque and calculus, prebiotic larch arabinogalactan for a healthy microbiome, and Australian blue mussel and collagen-rich chicken bone broth for joint support.
It can be used as part of a raw or cooked homemade diet depending on preference. Please see our flexible feeding guides for how-to-use instructions.
When used as per the guide, CompleteMe® Feline will create diets that are formulated to meet the AAFCO nutrient profile for maintenance in adult cats. Highly concentrated to reduce total volume of powder required and improve palatability.
One 200 gram bag makes approximately 8 kilograms of food, with no added water.
Homemade treat recipes
Treat Recipe One: Kangaroo and chia bites
This gently baked treat recipe is high in lean protein and fibre-rich. Ultra-low in carbohydrate, so suitable for cats with diabetes as well. Limited protein (no chicken, beef, fish etc) for cats with inflammatory bowel disease or food allergies.
And best of all, it's economical, costing $2.35 per 100 grams. Compare that with commercial dried kangaroo treats like Prime Pantry Kangaroo Nibbles, which costs $11.85 per 100 grams!
Ingredients
250 grams 'Kroo' kangaroo mince (2% fat)
Other meats can be used instead of the kangaroo mince, including chicken breast mince (2% fat), chicken mince (5% fat), turkey mince (ideally 'Steggles'; 6% fat), beef mince (5% fat), and extra lean pork mince (5% fat).
6 grams (3 level teaspoons) of whole chia seeds
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 170C.
- Soak the chia seeds with 2 tablespoons of water for 10 minutes.
- Mix the kangaroo mince and soaked chia seeds well.
- Cover a flat oven tray with baking paper, then roll the mixture to about 3 mm thick. Bake for 15 minutes.
- Flip carefully, and bake for an additional 15 minutes. Allow to cool.
- Use a knife or scissors to cut into small squares. Keep refrigerated and use within a week.
Makes approximately 165 grams of treats.
Treat Recipe Two: Hoki creamy treats
This tasty creamy treat also contains limited protein from wild-caught hoki, and is rich in fibre. Commercial creamy treats can be great, but they generally contain tuna or chicken, and they are also very expensive. Making your own allows you to use other proteins like beef or kangaroo, and means you can also avoid other additives like gums or thickeners.
The cost for these treats is approximately $1.90 per 100 grams (compared with Inaba Churu Tuna Recipe Cat Treats, which cost $9.75 per 100 grams).
Ingredients
20 grams 'Hey Bird' Hoki Pokey freeze-dried hoki treats
0.75 grams (0.25 level teaspoon) whole chia seeds
Chicken bone broth or water
Directions
To make homemade chicken bone broth:
- Place the chicken bones in a pot and add water until the bones are fully covered. Add a splash of apple cider vinegar.
- Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat to a simmer and cook for 2 - 4 hours.
- Remove the bones and discard. Allow the broth to cool, then skim off the fat that floats to the top before use.
To make the creamy treats:
- Use a coffee grinder or bullet blender for best results. Blend/blitz the freeze-dried hoki and chia seeds very well so there are no large chunks. You may need to stir the mixture between blends to get the smoothest consistency.
- Store hoki and chia seed powder in an air-tight container for up to 2 weeks.
- When making the treat, scoop 1 level tablespoon of powder into a bowl. Add enough chicken broth or water to get a creamy consistency, generally 1 tablespoon is sufficient. Mix well.
Other lean freeze-dried treats can also be used, including chicken breast, lean beef, kangaroo, emu, crocodile, and buffalo.
Makes approximately 20 grams of powder, which makes about 300 g of creamy treats.
Everything you need to make your own creamy treats ...
