Over the year, I love to grow/purchase fruits and veggies as well as fresh herbs to dehydrate and save for later. This specific batch, I dehydrated oranges for candles that I was making. Dehydrating can be lots of fun and it is also a great way to save and store food.
Now, not all dehydrator’s are the same. Some come with temperature and time settings and others don’t. That doesn’t mean that you can’t find good, cheap ones. My father in law has a great dehydrator that doesn’t have temperature settings or time settings and it works really well on getting peppers dehydrated. I also have a friend who found a great dehydrator from a yard sale for $30.00. The main thing to keep in mind here is that if you are dehydrating to keep the integrity and nutritional potency of a plant then temperature is very important.
If you dehydrate an herb at too high of a temperature then it will reduce the potency of said herb. I recently purchased the COSORI Food Dehydrator from Amazon for $160.00. To me, this was worth the money since I am trying to dry different herbs and veggies from our garden. I will be using the instructions for dehydrating the oranges based off this model.
Items Needed:
Dehydrator
Oranges – I used 2 full oranges for this batch
Drying Rack & Mesh Screen
Process:
Take all of the oranges and slice them into thin slices.
Lay them out on your drying tray and place tray into the dehydrator.
Select your temperature – 130 degrees Fahrenheit
Select your time – 4 and a half hours
Once the dehydrator is done, it will automatically shut off. Once finished, remove the oranges and place them into an air tight container. I put mine into plastic baggies since I would be using them quickly. If you would like to keep them fresh for long periods of time I would highly recommend the Foodsaver Vacuum Sealer.
Dehydrating is a great way to stock up on your food storage but also is great for aiding in making homemade crafts and potpourri. You can pretty much dehydrate anything that you would like/could think of.
Give this process a try and see how fast your food storage grows!
Cheers!