We love to dehydrate fruits and veggies around here {meats, too!}, not only to preserve our garden or bulk bounty {although it’s a perfect way to do so!}, but sometimes because dehydrated foods are just super tasty and make awesome snacks. But if you are a novice dehydrator, that big white piece of equipment might be a tad overwhelming. Don’t be afraid of it. A dehydrator is one of the easiest kitchen gadgets to use! And trust me when I say that once you’ve mastered dehydrating using the tips below, you’ll be a dehydrating fiend!! It’s addicting {kind of like the apple chips it produces!}.
- Choose your equipment wisely. Not all dehydrators are created equally. I use a Nesco American Harvest Food Dehydrator
and LOVE it. I’ve used other brands through the years and haven’t liked them nearly as much. Of course you can dehydrate in the oven, but I think the small price for a dehydrator is a worthy investment!
- Pick quality produce or puree it. I always try to dehydrate the non-bruised, non-blemished, non-mushy fruits and veggies. They seem to turn out the best. But I also use my dehydrator for all those bruised, mushy, blemished items as well, just in a different way. I puree them and make fruit leather. Yum!
- Follow the directions. It’s often hard to tell if your fruits and veggies are cooking for long enough or at the right temperature just by inspecting them. Unless you’ve dehydrated enough personally to figure out temps and settings through trial and error, always refer to the manual that came with your dehydrator. It will recommend temp settings and times for all sorts of foods! Do note that humid air can slow down the dehydration process, so if you live in the South or the likes, you might want to take that into account.
- Prep your foods. I like to give some of the fruits I dehydrate {namely apples and pears} a quick bath in a cold water/lemon juice mix to keep them from browning and keep them tasting a bit fresher. When I dehydrate veggies, I like to blanch them first. It helps prevent against bacteria, keeps the colors brighter, and helps retain vitamins.
- Uniform is best. Make sure you do your best to cut all of your foods as evenly as possible so they require the same amount of drying time. If your apple slices are all different thicknesses, you’ll have some too dry and some too mushy when you’re all through. This is especially essential if you are cutting up meat for jerky strips. You don’t want some under cooked and some so chewy you can’t eat!
- Give them space. Never overlap your foods on the trays. It blocks airflow through the trays and prevents foods from drying or causes them to dry unevenly. The only exception to this is when dehydrating herbs and leafy greens. They are thin enough that is doesn’t matter.
- High and dry. If you want to dehydrate something your manual doesn’t cover, a good rule of thumb to remember is to try to dehydrate the food as quickly as possible. The higher the temperature the better. Be careful though because if you dehydrate at a temperature too high, your food can become hard on the outside and soft on the inside. You can almost always google a type of food and find someone who has worked out the dehydrating kinks!
- Dehydrate like foods together. Don’t try to dehydrate peppers on one rack and bananas on another. Your bananas will be spicy {gag!}. I’ll dehydrate apples and bananas together or foods in the same family, but all foods from the brassica family {broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, kohlrabi, rutabaga, turnips, etc. } should be dehydrated alone because the emit a sulfur taste that soaks into whatever else you dehydrate.
- If you dehydrate onions, get ready to cry! Much like when you chop them, the oils they emit will filter through the air when you dehydrate them and may irritate the eyes. Same thing with peppers. If possible, set your dehydrator outside or in a super well ventilated space.
- Storage is key. A common misconception is that if you dehydrate a food, it will last for ages. Not true! Meats can still go rancid, so I suggest freezer storage for them. For everything else, store in airtight containers or Ziploc bags to keep out moisture.
Do you have any tips for novice dehydrators? What’s your favorite thing to dehydrate?
~Mavis
Looking for a good dehydrator? Go HERE. Amazon has a ton of them in stock right now.
Do you have a food dehydrator but don’t know where to start? Check out the book these tutorials:
- How to Make Fruit Leather
- How to Dehydrate Tomatoes
- How to Dehydrate Sweet Potatoes
- How to Dehydrate Canned Pineapple
- How to Dehydrate Potatoes
- How to Dehydrate Mango
- How to Dehydrate Kiwi Fruit
- How to Dehydrate Sage
- How to Dehydrate Strawberries
- How to Dehydrate Carrots
- How to Dehydrate Watermelon
- How to Dehydrate Mushrooms
- How to Make Apple Chips
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Rosaleen says
Most of what I dehydrate is targeted for nearly instant travel/backpacking meals, so the food is first cooked completely, then dehydrated. This may not give the best quality for general dehydrating, but it has worked for me. Chili, ground, cooked, or shredded canned meats come back very well. Packages of frozen vegetables, bought on sale, work very well, as little to no prep is needed. Consider fishing out peas to whir through a blender, though. Peas can dehydrate into buckshot that doesn’t want to rehydrate, t]with the potential to break a tooth. Mashed sweet potatoes can be hard to distinguish from fresh after rehydration. When my children were younger, they liked fruit leathers that I made from canned applesauce flavored with assorted gelatins Huge (maybe 50 oz.) jars of applesauce can be found quite cheaply. Store foods in glass jars that have a rubber seal on the lid. Make a tiny hole that can be covered with a small piece of electrical tape and vacuum seal for longer freshness. Also, consider storing food in cleaned and dried mylar bags from chips, etc. These can be sealed with a clothing iron and are more vapor/puncture resistant than plastic bags and will stand up to hot water when the food is reconstituted. If I fly anywhere, I often carry an immersion coil and a few meals in individual bags. Anyone who has been stuck in an airport, especially after the food kiosks have closed, can appreciate this idea.
Beth Rankin says
I am becoming more and more enamored with dehydrating. Properly stored, foods last longer than canned. Also it takes less storage space and no glass breakage in case of falling off the storage shelf (thinking about that earthquake the Northwest is going to have sometime whenever.) two of my kids are adventureres so we plan menus that can resconstitute with less fuel. I made an Oregon state fair best in division winner last year with a Pumpkin Coconut curry Instant Soup mix. We make soups and meal mixes and my next test kitchen
project is to see if my Loaded Pasta Sauce is enjoyable as a dehydrated product.