Aury Nathil
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How to dehydrate vegetables?

Dehydration is an excellent method to preserve the food for future. Although dehydration is an ancient method for preserving food many of them never tried it. But now we could see that most people are into it. The main reason for using dehydrated food is that it is very nutritious, lightweight, and absolutely delicious.

Making your own dehydrated food has a lot of benefits.
The correct food dehydration method depends on what you are dehydrating. Most of the foods don’t really need any preparation. Dehydration can be done in an oven or even in a toaster. Dehydrated vegetables have a lot of health benefits.

Here are a few tips that you can follow before you jump in and start dehydrating:
1. Blanch the vegetables before you dehydrate.
2. Dehydrate only one family to food at a time.
3. You can dehydrate vegetables regardless of quality or puree.
4. If you are using a dehydrator make sure that you read the instructions before you throw all the vegetables into it.

Recently I dried beans. What I did was first I steamed and broke the beans into 1-inch pieces. Then I blanched it and dried for 6-12 hours until brittle. It turned out to a good one. Just try it.

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jal_ut
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Drying fruits and vegetables is a good way to preserve them. I have a dehydrator, it is the Excalibur 2900 EC. Does a nice job.

john gault
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I also have an Excalibur dehydrator and love dehydrated foods, especially veggies, because it intensifies the taste by removing water, which dilutes the taste. I think a common mistake in dehydrating is over-drying the food. If your dehydrated tomatoes snap, they're way too dry and that removes much of the taste and available nutrients.

I've also found that I don't need to blanch a lot of the veggies that many instruction books call for, but there are some that it's crucial to blanch. One example, potatoes...they definitely must be blanched.

SQWIB
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My favorite is sun dried tomatoes, still eating last years crop.
I leave my dehydrator out all season on my seed starting table. When I get tomatoes that are split or pecked I slice off the bad, slice thick and season with some spices, when leathery, I dunk in apple cider vinegar and toss in a jar with some olive oil/apple cider vinegar mix.
I also make a tomato powder for thickening tomato sauces, soups and stews

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applestar
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Sounds yummy SQWIB and good idea to process those right away like that.

@john -- does blanching prevent the potatoes from turning brown? Could you go into more details? How do you cut the potatoes and how long to blanch. Salted water? What do you do with the dehydrated potatoes?

john gault
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applestar wrote:...

@john -- does blanching prevent the potatoes from turning brown? Could you go into more details? How do you cut the potatoes and how long to blanch. Salted water? What do you do with the dehydrated potatoes?
Without blanching, the potato will turn a gray to black color, very unappealing looking.

I cut the potatoes between 1/8 - 1/4" thick and then simply throw them in boiling water for about five minutes, which breaks down the tough cellular structure -- I put nothing in the water.

I use the dehydrated potatoes in stews I make, they re-hydrate nicely and are especially good when taking on a hiking/biking trip, because they are a very light weight (being dehydrated) that provide a good source of carbs and some electrolytes.


BTW, This guy did a taste experiment between blanched and non-blanched potatoes and he came to the conclusion that there's no difference in taste. But I just can't get past the look of non-blanched potatoes, they really do look like they're growing mold on them :eek:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGDw1F1cotI


.

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applestar
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