Drying Fruit- Quick, Healthy Snacks
I was just out enjoying the beautiful, sunny day in my backyard and noticed the raspberries are starting to ripen! By next week, we should be able to start harvesting. And as my son, Connor, would say” and harvesting and harvesting”. We have a few varieties of raspberry canes, so we’ll be picking everyday until September. From the number of berries I’m seeing out there, I’ll be busy making jam, fruit leather and dehydrating. I also invite family, friends and neighbors over to help themselves to as many as they want.
Berries starting to ripen
Drying fruit is something I learned early in our journey. Dehydrating can be as simple as cutting your fruit into thin strips, placing them on a parchment lined baking sheet and plunking them in the oven at 135 degrees. I, however am a person who likes gadgets. In fact, I love gadgets. I have an apple corer, peeler, slicer gadget from Pampered Chef that makes preparing apple chips super quick and easy to do. I also have the wider slicing “barrel” for making apple pies. The other gadget I have is an inexpensive dehydrator. In fact, we have two of the same model. Brian makes jerky with his. I just couldn’t handle the thought of the same blower sitting on top of fruits and meats.
Pampered Chef Corer, Peeler, Slicer
When we started on our journey to greener, one of the first things we looked at was reducing the number of processed snacks we ate. Dehydrating is a great way to provide healthy snacks for your family and preserve foods that would otherwise go bad. I started with apple and banana chips because they are easy and familiar. Most recipes for apples or pears will recommend dipping them in lemon juice so they don’t brown. I no longer do this because I find that the chips don’t really get that brown and it was messy.
Kiwi prepped for drying
Dried Kiwi- Delicious!
I now get quite creative with my dehydrator. I have made my own power greens powder to disguise in sauces, smoothies and soups. Also, out of desperation last summer, I tried dehydrating Sungold cherry tomatoes. Which are amazing! They taste like sun-dried tomatoes but slightly sweeter. I toss a handful in soups or stews. I do the same thing with Swiss Chard. Just blanche the leaves in boiling water for a few minutes then dip in ice water. I spread them out on the drying trays and they hold up nicely until I’m ready to use them in soups all Winter long.
Fruit Leather is another fun way to use up fruit. You can blend any type of fruit you want with applesauce and spread it out on a parchment lined tray. Put it in your oven at 135 degrees. When it’s dry but still slightly tacky, cut it into strips and roll-up. I store mine in baggies. I use unsweetened homemade applesauce that is quite chunky for my fruit leather. It’s a flexible recipe! Experiment to adjust it to your taste. Fruit leather could also be made with frozen fruit since your blending it.
Raspberries, strawberries, tomatoes, apples, bananas, kiwis and grapes will all find their way onto my dehydrator trays this Summer. Some fruits will be eaten as fast as I dehydrate them. Especially the raspberries. Those are a favorite for everyone in our family. Others, like apples and tomatoes will last throughout the Winter.
I store my dried foods in canning jars. I prefer the wide mouth jars because they are easier to clean. These jars are popular for all kinds of crafts and party themes, so they are easy to find in grocery stores, craft stores and kitchen supply stores. If you choose to dehydrate food AND you want to store it in canning jars, you may want to consider investing in a Food Saver or other vacuum sealing system that has a lid attachment. My Food Saver is at least 20 years old and still going strong. I don’t think it would hold up to processing a large quantity at once, but it works for my needs.
Food Saver with Lid Attachment
Our next step to being greener will be to build a solar dehydrator to use in the Summer. More to come on that! I’ll be posting pictures of the process and describing how successful we are with it.
22 Comments
Our kitchen is a little small to get carried away with gadgets, and I hadn’t even considered we could dehydrate fruits just by basically baking them in the oven. Helpful post!
Ohhhh the gadgets!! At least these are useful 🙂
I’ve never tried dried kiwi but it sounds delicious!
I was always curious about fruit leather as I am a recovered Fruit Roll Ups addict 😉 I will have to give them a try-sounds like a fun activity for the twinsies!
I love dehydrated fruits. I have never tasted dehydrated kiwi, but that did look very interesting! The solar dehydrating sounds pretty cool!
I’ve never had a dried kiwi! Looks delicious!
I love dried fruits! Apricots and peaches are my favorite, though I’ve never tried kiwi. This looks like fun!
I hate throwing away produce when we don’t eat it fast enough. This is such a creative and awesome solution!
Love those Pampered Chef gadgets!
We love drying fruits for a different kind of snack. Haven’t done kiwi yet though, but I love kiwi so will give this a try!
Always want the dehydrator, seems like a very useful kitchen gadget.
This is something I have always wanted to do – make my own dried fruit. Yum.
I’m very intrigued by the upcoming solar dehydrator! Do keep us informed. You’re very creative in the kitchen!
I love this blog article! I just bought an air fryer/dehydrator, and I am very excited to start dehydrating. Thank you for all the good tips!
I never thought about drying kiwi! Thanks for the idea.
Looks so yummy!
I should try dehydrating fruit. I’ve never done it myself before. It sounds fun, especially with the proper gadget!
I have always wondered about how to dehydrate fruit. I t is such a great way to preserve fruit. Inexpensive and healthy.
Yum! I haven’t tried the dried kiwi’s but it looks good! I love fruit. It normally doesn’t last long at my house fresh. We eat it up!
I love kitchen gadgets, too. Unfortunately, we have a small kitchen right now. I never thought about trying to dry out my fruits in the oven. I am going to try it. Thank you!
So so interesting!!! I want to try this someday too! I never thought of making my own fruit leather! Thanks again for posting this!
I have always wanted to try my own fruit, but I just didn’t know how! I definitely see myself making some dried fruit in the very near future!