If you enjoy camping as much as we do, you need to get this kitchen appliance. It will be a life-changer! Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Here are some options that are especially good at stopping light-colored fruits from darkening. Ascorbic acid : Dissolve 1 tablespoon of pure ascorbic acid into 1 quart of water.
Add sliced or chopped food to the solution and let sit for no longer than one hour. Remove, drain, and rinse lightly before adding to dehydrator trays. You can usually find ascorbic acid at your local health food or grocery store. Citric acid : Dissolve 1 tablespoon of citric acid in crystalline form. Treat as above. Buy citric acid at your local health food or grocery store. Fruit juice : Stir 1 cup lemon juice into 1 quart of water. Dip fruit for up to 10 minutes, and then drain well.
Sodium bisulfite : Dissolve 1 teaspoon of sodium bisulfite powder in 1 quart of water. Soak cut fruit for 2 minutes before removing, draining, and rinsing. Also be cautious about sulfite allergies, which are common. For the best dried fruit, choose high quality produce that was picked when ripe.
Ripe fruit is at its peak sugar content, which means sweeter snacks. But watch for anything overripe or bruised: these may turn black while drying. Place on dehydrating trays and dry at to F until pliable. For fruits like apples, bananas, peaches, and nectarines, drying times will range from 6 to 16 hours. Apricots, grapes, figs, and pears can take anywhere between 20 to 36 hours. Check every 2 to 3 hours within those ranges, rotating trays if necessary. Vegetables dry more quickly than fruits, but they also spoil more quickly.
Take care when preparing and do everything you can to preserve their freshness before drying. That includes storing in the fridge or on produce-saving paper , only preparing as much as you can handle in one load, and washing in cold water. Remove any tough pieces of skin or stem, cutting away bruises and spots. Slice to an even thickness using a food processor or spiralizer.
Choose smaller lengths over larger ones to speed drying. Blanch where necessary as noted above. Place on dehydrator trays without overlapping and dry at F. Tomatoes and onions are the exception and are best dried at F. Drying times will range from 4 to 10 hours depending on the vegetable and size of your pieces.
Brussels sprouts, onions, peppers, and garlic will leave their signature scent in other foods. Choose only fresh, lean meat and low-fat varieties of fish for drying, since fat will spoil quickly. Spread on trays and dry at F. Most cooked meats will take between 6 and 12 hours to dry fully. Pat dry if any oil surfaces during the dehydration process. You can also dehydrate cooked ground beef in the same way. Once cured, brush off the strips and dehydrate at F.
Some people with digestive issues find that soaking and dehydrating nuts and seeds make them easier to handle. Soaking helps break down these inhibitors, making nuts and seeds more digestible. To prepare nuts for dehydrating, soak overnight in a solution of salt and water about 1 tablespoon sea salt to 4 cups of nuts covered in water.
Drain and spread in a single layer on dehydrator trays. Dry at F for 12 to 24 hours. There are even people who prefer to steam their dried food. Do you have fruits or vegetables that are about to spoil? Slice them up and dehydrate them. Mother Nature will thank you. Food dehydration will enable you to enjoy foods that are closest to their natural state, which are considered healthier. Also, making time to purchase foods to be dehydrated, prepping them, and storing them later.
But the benefits outweigh the hassles. Just the fact that you can have enough healthy food for prolonged periods is a great advantage.
Your body will show whether you consume healthy or unhealthy food. As they say, you are what you eat—and by dehydrating food, eating healthy should be relatively easy. To learn more about dehydrating and some of the best recipes to get started, check out this article from Insteading. Here is everything you need to know about dehydrating food. You may also like. Depending on your storage method, you might consider including either a desiccant packet or an oxygen absorber packet.
Desiccant packs remove moisture. Can be used when vacuum sealing especially jars that will be opened and resealed , but is not necessarily required if the ingredients are properly dried and handled. Oxygen absorbers remove… oxygen. Rehydration is a factor of water, heat, and time.
Generally speaking, you want to add as much water back into the food as you took out in the dehydration process. You can figure this out by weighing the food before it goes into the dehydrator, then subtracting the dehydrated weight, and that number is the amount of water you would want to add back in when rehydrating.
To be honest, we are never that precise, and our general rule is to add water to just cover the ingredients in the pot, adding more or less depending on our ideal consistency of the final meal. This is an imperfect system but it works fairly well. Remember, you can always add more water if needed! Add your meal and water to your pot and let it soak for a bit, maybe while you set up camp or do chores keep within arms reach if in bear country.
Then, simmer the meal until it has rehydrated. Lower the heat towards the end to avoid scorching. Same as above: add your meal and water to your pot and let it soak for a bit. Then, cover and bring the meal to a rapid simmer for a few minutes before turning off the heat. Let the meal rehydrate, stirring after 10 minutes. Boil in Bag: If you pack your meals in mylar bags that are heat-rated F or above, you can pour boiling water right into the bag, seal, and let it rehydrate stir the food after 10 minutes.
Placing the bag in a cozy will help retain heat. This method will take the longest, usually minutes but sometimes longer depending on the food and altitude.
Here are some of our favorite dehydrated meals on our site. See our full index of dehydrated recipes here. Fresh Off The Grid is a culinary resource for the outdoor community. We offer a collection of recipes, how-to guides, and camp cooking gear to help you enjoy great food in the great outdoors! Your email address will not be published.
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. You'll be notified via email when someone replies to your comment. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. This article is super helpful, thank you so much!
Other than printing the whole page as a pdf, unfortunately, no. Not yet anyway. But that is a really great suggestion and we are going to look into providing PDF version. Dehydrating is not only good for backpacking, but for convenience at home. When certain items are on sale, buy extra and dehydrate as much as you can, store them, and then you have them in the pantry waiting to be used when you need them.
This is such a great method when you consider the food that could be lost in refrigerators and freezers due to power outages. A power outage will never affect your dried foods. Great point! Also when certain produce comes into season dehydrate as much as you can! A big harvest of zucchini? Way too many apples? Dehydrate them for later. I disagree to a point. This can cut drying times in half without negatively effecting the food dried so long as the heat is reduced to the recommended heat after hours.
Thanks for the response. Under the conditions you mentioned: 1. Under those circumstances, the risk of hard-casing is probably very minimal. And you probably can speed up the drying process a little bit. However, since we are attempting to give direction to a wide-range of dehydrator users a lot of first-timers , we often rely on the simplest and safest option. Which for most people is going to be: set it to the appropriate temperature and walk away.
Thanks for sharing. Angel Food cake sliced into thin strips makes great cookie type snacks. I use the crumbs in the jar I store them in as a desert topping or over cereal. I call them angel cookies. I was dehydrating tomatoes and watermellon at degrees F and realized that my dehydrator must have timed out due to my mistake in setting the timer.
The food was 6 hours into 24 hour drying time and may have been off several hours still quite warm inside dehydrator. Is the food safe to continue drying and eat? A stupid beginners mistake!
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