Want to know how to dehydrate food? If you’re looking for a self-sufficient way to preserve food, then this is a method you may want to try. Make food last longer by dehydrating, learn more here!
Learn How To Dehydrate Garlic In Your Homestead
Any homesteader will agree that when it’s harvest time, you may end up with more produce than you can consume right away. So what can you do to avoid wasting food? Preserve it! There are a lot of ways to preserve food but if you’re looking for a method that’s efficient and effective, then why not attempt to dehydrate food? It’s a great homesteading project and self-sufficiency skill to build, plus it’s a great way to save money and stock up on food for a rainy day.
What You’ll Need:
- Fruit or Vegetable of choice (I used garlic for this tutorial)
- Dehydrator
- Food processor or cutting board & knife
- Parchment paper (optional)
- Jars
- Food vacuum sealer
Name a dish that doesn’t use garlic. There are so many dishes that call for garlic and having some handy anytime will make cooking so much easier. Dehydrated garlic will be great for soups and stews and you can even grind it for some homemade garlic powder. So grab a few pounds of garlic and let’s get to it.
How To Dehydrate Food:
Step 1: Mince Garlic
Prepare your garlic in your food processor by pulsing it. Do this until it’s finely minced.
Step 2: Spread The Minced Garlic Evenly
Spread the minced garlic evenly in one of the trays of your dehydrator. Repeat this for all other trays and stack them up.
Step 3: Completely Dry The Garlic
Let your dehydrator run for 8-12 hours until your garlic is completely dry.
Step 4: Time To Store
Time to store! Remove the dehydrated garlic from the tray and place it on the parchment paper. Once you’ve emptied a tray you can now transfer it to a jar. Once you’ve filled your jar use a food vacuum sealer to suck all the air out and preserve freshness. And that’s it. Repeat the process for any fruit or veggie.
Want to see how it’s done? Watch the video tutorial from Linda’s Pantry:
Have fun filling your pantry with dehydrated food. Although I would not advise dehydrating garlic with fruits, you can dehydrate other vegetables with it, it’s really up to you. Dehydrating food is a great way to eliminate waste and easily store food for long periods of time. When you need to hydrate it, simply put hot water and leave it for about an hour. If you’re going to use it for soups and stews, the cooking process will automatically do it for you. Have fun!
What do you think of this tutorial on how to dehydrate food? Do you think you’d be trying it out? We’d love to know what produce you’ll be dehydrating, share it with us in the comments section below.
Want another food preservation technique? Learn how to freeze eggs and make it lasts longer than ever!
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This post was originally published in June 2015 and has been updated for quality and relevancy.
Thank you. I have a question. when you just want a little of the food that you have dehydrated, Do you take out what you need and then redo the vaccummn (SP?) process again? How long can you keep food in plastic bags. I just started dehydrating, I have the same dehydrator that you are using. Thank you in advance for any information you can give me.