Newbies to Dehydrating!
Last fall, after eyeing one for quite a while, we finally purchased a dehydrator! We ended up getting the Excalibur 9 Tray Dehydrator from Amazon for about $175! This dehydrator is typically around $230, but we had setup an alert through keepa.com (an awesome Amazon price alert website), so once we saw it hit $175, we snatched it up!
This was our first dehydrator and we jumped right in! The guide that comes with it is great and provides all of the dehydrating times for veggies, fruits, meats, etc. One thing that we didn't pay much attention to at first was trying to keep all cuts and slices similar in size as that does make a big difference.
Here are some photos of some of the things we have dehydrated so far...
Bananas - These were some of our favorites, and the kids loved them as well!
Apples/Pineapples - Another one of our favorites! This was interesting doing these two together as the flavors melded a little bit :)
Cabbage - We actually haven't used this one yet, but plan on using it in soups and stews. I couldn't believe how much this stuff shrunk down!
And lastly here is the stock image of the dehydrator we got from Amazon -
Please share some tasty dehydrating recipes that have worked out well for you below!
The next dehydrator I get will be an Excalibur- I have a smaller one and every time I see one of these I get so envious.
I made apple chips the other day- never tried bananas... yet.
I dehydrate ALL my herbs, make teriyaki jerky and dehydrate tomatoes for tomato powder (great for adding to stew and sauces) and cucumber peelings (add to homemade salad dressings for extra flavor).
That’s awesome! Yeah the options are limitless! I really want to start making jerky, that’s one of my favorite snacks!
Great ideas with tomato and cucumber peels!!!
Dehydrator has been high on my list of things to obtain since last fall. This makes me want to drive out and buy it right now lol!! =)
Yeah, definitely a part of the homestead kitchen :)
I've heard a lot of good things about the Excalibur dehydrators. I think at some point we will get one. For now we just borrow my mother's, which is one of those circular stacking types.
Thanks for tip about that price watching website.
I love my Excaliber! Yours is probably a newer model of what I have. I just wish I had counter space for it. It has to stay in the garage and is hard to get to or I would use it even more!
Oh, forgot to add, made a basic bread dough but use beef or chicken stock instead of water or milk and much less oil/grease/lard. Roll it out and cut whatever size "biscuits" you prefer, then dehydrate instead of letting them rise. Makes GREAT dog biscuits and I can tailor the size to work for my stair step dogs.
Yeah it is pretty large... when it's not on the counter being used, you gotta think of a place to store it lol But it's definitely worth it :)
We have a small dehydrator and I use it a lot. We dehydrate all our fruit, grapes, figs, mangos, bananas, plantain, oranges, lemons, coconut, passion fruit, pineapple and pomegranate too. All my herbs get the same treatment. Perhaps I need a bigger dehydrator!
That’s awesome! We are expanding our garden this year and hope to have a lot more things to dehydrate!
That's awesome. We've been talking about getting one of those for ages, but there always seems to be something else we need more urgently. 😐 Dehydration is by far my favourite way of food preservation. Canning seems kind of complicated and it can go wrong. And freezing is just so energy consuming...
Yeah I agree... we started canning last year and that went pretty good, but yeah a lot more prep work than dehydrating... Some things taste better dehydrated, some things taste better canned... It's good to have both skills!
Great post. I appreciate the time and effort you put into it with pictures and an informative post. I see to many that are just pictures and a few sentences. The comment about using Keepa to get a better price is gold. I didnt know such a thing existed. Ill be checking it out. Keep up the great posts.
Thanks for the comment and kind words!
I’ve been thinking about getting a dehydrator for a while. Are there other models and sizes you recommend? How did you decide what size to get? My main interest is that I have a dog tree that produces much more fruit than I can eat in one season, but I’m sure I’d end up using for lots of other food. Thanks!
This is actually the first model we’ve owned so I can’t provide much guidance on this vs a smaller one. However we went with the larger one due to some great recommendations we’ve read our hopes to use it as our main means of preserving. We have done batches with it half full and although not very cost efficient, it definitely gets the job done.
Thanks!
Dinner for the boys with dehydrated greens beans! We’ll see how this goes over...
So, how did this go in the end? It looks yummy. We usually do not have problems getting our kids do eat vegetable, but there's often that initial reaction of ‘Oh no, veggies again!?’. It started when they started going to school. One of those strange attitudes that they just pick up from their peers although it has no basis in their actual desires or taste. They always end up finishing it off (and repeating).
Lol! It actually went really well! We have a lot of veggies with our meals and for the most part they do really well with them, they do a lot better than I did when I was a kid! :)