How to Dehydrate Food Without a Dehydrator: Best Free Method!
I love my old Presto dehydrator, but the noise can be a nuisance. It takes electricity to run, and sometimes I just have too much produce that needs to be dehydrated all at once and won’t all fit in the dehydrator. That’s why my favorite way to dehydrate produce is in the car! Keep reading to learn how to dehydrate food without a dehydrator. No special equipment or electricity required!
Dehydrating Without a Dehydrator
What’s my big secret to dehydrate food without a dehydrator? It’s my car! Using tools you already have in your kitchen, you can dehydrate tons of fresh produce for free!
It works for a wide variety of foods. Dehydration is fantastic way to preserve the nutritional value of your food while saving space. Although I do can food as well, dehydrated food takes a small fraction of the space.
Our favorite dehydrated food is fruit for snacking or to add to oatmeal. We also dry a variety of herbs and vegetables that can be thrown in a soup or a crockpot meal.
What Kinds of Food Can You Dehydrate in Your Car?
The car is great to dehydrate food without a dehydrator because it gets warm and is large enough you don’t have to worry about ventilation. It also keeps insects and critters away from your food!
The types of food you can dehydrate in your car will vary with the time of year.
To get an idea of what kind of food you can dehydrate in your car, you can point your car toward the sun and place a thermometer on the dashboard. This is typically the hottest place in your car.
Recommended dehydrating temperatures are as follows:
- Herbs and Spices 95° F
- Vegetables 125°F
- Fruit 135°F
- Meat 160°F
The temperatures don’t need to be exact, but give you a general idea of how hot your car needs to be. If your car is too hot for what you want to dry, you can either point the car away from the sun, or instead of the dashboard try placing your food in the driver and passenger seats where it’s not quite as hot.
If the temperature isn’t hot enough, you can chop the food smaller and space it farther apart on the tray. You can also give it a head start in your oven at the lowest temperature setting and move it to the car to finish.
How to Dehydrate Food Without a Dehydrator
1: Pick a warm, sunny day
2: Slice fruits or vegetables thinly and lay in a single layer on a cookie sheet or cooling rack
3: Face your car toward the sun for the hottest temperature
4: Let the food dry on your dashboard until fruit is leathery and vegetables are brittle
Since this is a method of solar dehydration, the sun needs to be shining to dehydrate food this way, so choose a sunny day!
To dehydrate food without a dehydrator, you’ll need some cookie sheets or other food safe trays to spread the food out on. While you can dry food directly on the trays, I’ve found I get the best quality dehydrated foods when I use a cooling rack on top of the tray. This gives your produce some ventilation on the bottom and keeps it from sticking to the tray.
To prep food for dehydration, cut it into small pieces. If your car is a little cooler than the recommended temperature, cut your food even thinner to make sure it dehydrates quickly.
Blanching
Some books suggest that you blanch fruits and vegetables before dehydrating them. Blanching is dipping them in boiling water for a few seconds up to a few minutes. I prefer not to blanch foods meant for dehydrating. It is far more time consuming and the foods I dehydrate stay nice for years even without blanching. I also like to keep foods that I will be eating raw, raw. This preserves the vitamins and nutrients that would be reduced in cooking, plus it’s better for blood sugar!
You can get directions for prepping different kinds of fruit in our Ultimate Guide to Drying Fruit. Most kinds of fruit dry nicer with a pretreatment of lemon juice, honey, or a combination, so be sure to check out this page!
Spread the sliced fruits or veggies in a single layer on the trays (or on the racks on the trays if you are using cooling racks!). Herbs can be piled up a few inches high if the temperature is hotter than 95°F, as shown in the pictures.
Check on the food every few hours if possible to make sure it is drying.
How to Know When Your Food is Done
The most important thing to remember to dehydrate food without a dehydrator is to make sure it is adequately dried. Foods that are too moist will mold in storage.
Herbs and leafy greens should be dry and crispy.
Vegetables should be dry and hard.
Fruits should be dry and leathery but not brittle. They should ideally be a little drier than store bought dried fruit unless you are adding preservatives. Fruit will last longer if dried more, and can be placed in a container with a damp paper towel to soften it just prior to eating if needed.
Meat should be completely dry and will last best if it is brittle. Commercial jerky is soft because of preservatives. If you aren’t adding loads of preservatives you’ll need to get your meat much drier. As a side note, meats such as poultry and pork should be fully cooked before dehydrating. Precooking is optional with meats that are safe to eat raw, such as beef and fish.
Dehydrating Food Without a Dehydrator
We use this method to dehydrate food without a dehydrator with our homegrown produce. We also buy cases of organic produce from Azure Standard. Azure is a bulk foods co-op with no membership fees. Their trucks deliver across the US for free! We’ve been using Azure for 20 years! You can check out their bulk produce here!
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