How I Preserve Food: Dehydrating

There are a lot of ways to preserve food. Canning via water bath or pressure canner, Freezing, Eating. Ok eating doesn’t preserve, it consumes.
My preferred method is dehydrating.
Mostly because I don’t have to pay close attention to what I am doing. If you forget about it, your food isn’t ruined.
Unless you turn it off and don’t immediately store the freshly dehydrated food. By forget I mean around 3 weeks. The zucchini were fine, just a little moist after being rehydrated.

There are essentially two types of dehydrators.

The round, stackable trays, like this one:

We had one of these years ago. You had to rotate the trays or the food would dry uneven. After looking at Amazon, this brand says no need to rotate trays. They must have redone their design. This is an affordable dehydrator for those just starting out.

Then you have the square, slide in tray style:

I love this one because I can fit my canning jars in it for yogurt when the trays are removed.
One negative is the size of the trays are not dishwasher friendly, at least not ours.
It can be done, but it’s a game of Tetris.

What is Dehydrating?
Dehydrating is simply removing the moisture from food with low temperature heat. I use an electric dehydrator, but you can use the sun if you prefer.

How to Dehydrate
When dehydrating your food you want the slices to not over lap on the tray.
Also, you want the thickness to be fairly uniform so the pieces dry evenly.
This goes for anything from jerky to bananas to onions.
Place the food on the trays and set to the suggested temperature.
It depends on whether you are dehydrating fruit or veggies as to what the temperature should be.

How to Store your Dehydrated Food
If it is something like jerky I just store in a ziploc bag. Jerky doesn’t last long in our house.
Anything else I usually vacuum seal in a vacuum seal bag or a jar with the jar sealer.

What to Dehydrate
The only thing I haven’t tried to dehydrate yet is scrambled eggs.
I have dehydrated just about everything. Corn, Mangoes, Onions, Garlic. I have even made Yogurt using my dehydrator.

I recommend this book:

Join us as we share different reasons and methods of how we preserve food to create a long-term storage plan for our families. Click on each link to be taken to a new blog with helpful information and tips.

Join us as we share different reasons and methods of how we preserve food to create a long-term storage plan for our families. Click on each link to be taken to a new blog with helpful information and tips.

Mom with a PREP – How to Dehydrate Ginger and Make Ginger Powder

Preparedness Mama – Make Jam Without Pectin

Mama Kautz – Dehydrating

Busy B Homemaker – Freezer Jam

Ed That Matters – Anyone Can Do It: Fool Proof Food Storage

The Apartment Prepper – Easy Marinated Mushrooms

The Homesteading Hippy – How to Use Your Pressure Canner

Montana Homesteader – Making and Preserving Cherry Pit Syrup

Are We Crazy or What – How to Dehydrate Cherries

Your Thrive Life – How I Preserve Food: Meals in a Jar

Melissa K Norris – Re-Usable Canning Tattler Lids-Do They Really Work?

Real Food Living – Preserve and Store Grains wiith Dry Ice

Cooke’s Frontier – Smoking

Homestead Dreamer – Water Bath Canning

Evergrowing Farm – How to Preserve Red Chile

Survival Sherpa – Modern Mountain Man MRE’s

The Backyard Pioneer – Fermentation

Trayer Wilderness – How We Preserve Food

Living Life in Rural Iowa – Vegetable Soup

The Organic Prepper – How to Make Jam without using added Pectin

Homesteading Mom – How I Preserve Broccoli and Goat Cheese Soup

A Matter of Preparedness – How I Preserve Using Mylar Bags