Frugality: Dehydrating Herbs
My husband and I live on very little. We are working on paying off debt, renovating our house and starting our homestead. Once all the bills are paid for there is little left to live on. When friends find out exactly how much is left over most of them ask how we manage that. They are used to convenience foods and going out to eat among other extravagances that we simply don’t have often. Somehow they fail to realize how much money they would have left if they didn’t do these things. Sure we slip and spend money on things we probably shouldn’t. After all we grew up in a consumer society and not just that but a consumer society with the internet. We had everything at our fingertips all the time, this did not teach us stellar impulse control. But we are growing and working on it, it’s a slow but steady process. So I thought I would do a series of posts on how we save money and maybe some of you would have some other suggestions!
(2 jars of oregano, 1 jar of parsley and 1 jar of chopped onions!)
Yesterday, I flexed my frugal muscles and saved some fresh herbs. I am making an effort to get more creative with my cooking so I tried a couple new meals this week. Both involved fresh herbs. Not having an herb garden (yet) I bought a bundle parsley and one of oregano. Neither recipe called for that much but that’s the smallest quantity sold at our store. In the past I might have just composted it but recently we bought a dehydrator! So I dried them and stored in canning jars. We also had an extra half an onion (none of my recipes use only half an onion!!) which I chopped and dried for chopped onions!
I did a little experiment with the oregano to see if it was easier to remove the leaves before or after. It was a good bit easier after dehydrating so I will be doing that from now on. The parsley was equally annoying before and after drying.
Dehydrating is a great way to preserve extra produce, even when it’s store bought!
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This is wonderful, I use my dehydrator for meat and such. I dry my goji berries and other fruits. Yes they do take longer when they have juices. Just a question. Spices and herbs are relatively cheap to purchase, wouldn't the cost of Electricity to dry the herbs, than it would be to just freeze them or buy more fresh, from the store. Here in Canada Hydro power is very very expensive, not too sure about where you are, and your hydro cost. Just curious of the cost effectiveness. Thanks
I'd have to do some serious calculations and get back to you haha but our electricity is not terribly expensive. (I HIGHLY doubt it's hydro probably fossil fuels unfortunately) For me it was more about not wasting the herbs which cost me $3 a bundle. I could have saved time and energy by drying the herbs together just on separate racks . Also I use fresh herbs very little though I am trying to work on that so I will get more use out of them dehydrated. Dehydrating also means they will stay good even if our power goes out which after the hurricane and not having power for 6 days is something I always consider. You are right though it might not be the best solution for everyone
i am totally in love with dehydrating! herbs i have not done yet, though. maybe this weekend, i've got a huge batch of basil that i cant use fast enough!
I am so glad we got a dehydrator. It'll probably pay for itself in 6 months!
I like the idea of drying the onion for flakes! I've always dried my herbs, but hadn't really thought about the onions. (I usually just chop and freeze them) That'd be great for creating pilaf seasoning blends! Upvoted, already follow your great ideas!
I don't use dried onion often (I'm assuming you could also grind them and make onion powder?) but it beats having it take up room in my freezer!
Love these tips. I hate waste and this is extremely valuable.
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Ah, life! Thanks for the useful info, and I wish you all the best in your endeavours :)
Those circular stacking dehydrators work well for herbs and other thin and relatively dry products, but once you get to drying juicy stuff like figs, apricots, plums, etc, they're not as good.
You have to constantly rotate the trays and the goods dry unevenly... :( We had a similar machine, but gave it away, it was frustrating and needed constant attention, like every 1-2 hours or so.
After much deliberation, we chose an Excalibur dehydrator, which has two fans in the back and drys 9 trays evenly. Just set and forget. Saves tons of work and fiddling and can dry three times the amount of out previous machine!
I have used it to dry meat as well and have hardly noticed a difference between the trays. For $60 vs what is it about $400 it was a good investment for a first time machine
That sounds like a great way to save money! I hadn't thought of dehydrating some herbs. I need to get some going. Going out to eat is a huge money pit, huh? It's so crazy. When we moved to Panama, we were used to eating out pretty regularly, but the area we live in now doesn't really have that option. Now we just go out to eat once a week when we do our grocery run to the big town an hour from us that has a McDs and Dominos. ;) We also used to be big into amazon and eBay, but since mail in Panama isn't an option, we cut those out cold turkey! I'm looking forward to your other posts about frugality!
Thanks for reading! We still eat out occasionally but no more than once a month. Panama must be interesting what made you go that way?
I wrote posts about it recently. Here is #1 and #2. ;)