DIY dehydrated foods!

Tired of crappy pre packaged dehydrated foods? I was taught this from a lady I did some work for. Being into gardening and preserving the summer spoils I started making my own spaghetti sauce. Using a fruit roll sheet I pour the sauce onto the sheets, turn on the dehydrator to 135* and let her rip for 4-8 hours depending on humidity. Fresh vegetables sliced to 1/4" also works well, sweet onions taste great. Really your imagination is the only limit.

One I want to try is potatoes and squash,does anyone have any experience? Or for that matter any favorite dish that lends it self to dehydration well?

Please post your experience and recipes.

I dehydrate cooked spaghetti squash all the time. 6-8 hrs at 135. Rehydrates like a dream.

Great idea! Would go great with some spaghetti sauce.

What about eggs, anyone try this?

Would this work with ground beef or sausage? I'm not a vegan, and like my protien, in spaghettie sauce. I've pondered getting a food dehydrater for a long time, but I really don't cook, and I also wouldn't know whay type of dehydrator to get.

I can do stuff like spaghetti sauce, chili, and things that are easy to do in the Crock Pot, like beef stew, etc..

Is it feasible to dehydrate stuff like that Rockchucker?

Or should I stay with mountain house. Truth is, when I get hungry, I can eat just about anything, so I don't really mind the "commercially prepared stuff", but would't mind my own homemade stew, and whatever else I can do in a crockpot or skillet.

J.

I'm not 100% sure, I would guess it would, especially of you vacume seal it. I use the dehydrator to make jerky, same principle really. Don't buy one, there are great plans for building them. When I get home later I'll look up the link of my next build.

Lots of info on dehydration for backpacking on my favorite website, trailcooking.com

From my own experience: some veggies don't reconstitute well; dehydrated peas in particular (after long cooking which reduced the chicken and rice dish they were a part of to mush, the peas were still the consistency of buckshot). Chopped spinach, on the other hand, works great! Chicken needs to be pressure cooked first (use canned chicken). All meat needs to be in really tiny pieces or it will remain rather crunchy. If you are dehydrating large amounts of meat, you're just as well off to order the large packages of freeze-dried meats from Packit Gourmet--assuming you use high-quality meat to dehydrate, as you should, the price will be about the same. This isn't true for smaller amounts, though.

Above all, be sure to dehydrate just a small amount of a new dish the first time and try it out at home (see my above experience with the peas!).

What a great site! I bookmarked it!

OM-

Yeah, I had the same experience with dehydrated peas. Now I either leave them out or whirl dehydrated peas in my blender just to break them up a little, then add to the dish.

CamperMom

That and green beans. Little pleather rocks I swear! Although I did blanch and dry fresh local grown ones this summer and they dried well, so my lesson was dry home grown!

I never was fond enough of green beans to want to try....

For those who don't know, Sarbar is the owner of the trailcooking.com website and my heroine!

Any advice???

I'm more likely to buy bags frozen veggies when they are "on special," cook to doneness in the microwave, cool slightly, and dehydrate. Most foods will never be the same as before dehydrating, but acceptable for a cooked food, especially on the trail, and especially in someting like a stew or sauce.

Cooked and dehydrated mashed potatoes and squashes, any variety, and greens such as cabbage, and bok choy, protein sources, such as canned (= pressure cooked)fish or meat, and thawed surimi come back very close to freshly cooked, in my experience. Ground cooked meats usually work pretty well, as might shredded meat preparations like BBQ pork. (Hubby actually liked some that I brought along for a long trip. He is my "acid test.")

You can use a hairdryer pointed into a vented box of some sort to try your hand at dehydrating foods, and sometimes a microwave on very low power, but if you can acquire a dehydrator with variable heat and very good airflow, you may have better results. The quality of all of my efforts improved greatly once I invested in an Excalibur dehydrator. There are a few others that are recommended. Check the archives here or at or food-preserving@yahoogroups.com.

Good Luck,

CamperMom

When I make my paleo FBC dinners, I used dehydrated spaghetti squash & dehydrated spaghetti sauce, then I add Freeze Dried meats that I get from Honeyville. Usually a combo of pork sausage and ground beef. It's delish!

http://blog.trailcooking.com/2012/09/18/dehydrating-green-beans/
This summer I added a number of quick "how-to's" to my blog

With certain fruit balancing opens up the cell structure allowing for better drying.

By the way love love love your site!

I make chili and dehydrate. Make it a bit less spicier than you like, and make sure you rinse and drain fat from the beef as well as you can. The dehydrating process intensifies spice.

Any meat should be cut small or thin and trimmed of as much fat as possible prior to going in the dehydrator. Any dish can be dehydrated - Fork in the Trail is full of meals you'll never see on Mountain House bags, and each recipe has dehydrating instructions.

do you use the trey for fruit leathers?

I wonder if it would work to use extra lean beef, form thin patties, and then grill them (like hamburgers). Grilling meat lets the fat drain away better than browning it in a skillet, and if you use charcoal or wood, you get a nice smoke flavor. You could season the meat before grilling it, too.

Once grilled you can chop it up small for dehydration -- maybe a food processor?

Would that work, or am I way off?

Not that you asked me, but I'll pipe up - I don't use the liner trays with my dehydrators. I prefer parchment paper, I buy the massive roll at Costco. I find for me it works better, but that is my personal feelings ;-)

Parchment paper has advantage of paper allowing moisture release while plastic/tefln liners trap water. Food on the latter trays can only dry from one side at a time.

+1 for Sarbar!

CM

Another parchment paper fan here. I use the plastic tray (only have one) only if what I want to dehydrate is really liquid (like soup).

If you do any baking at home, parchment paper is great for lining baking pans, too.

Parchment paper it is! Thanks great advice.

I should add that I did a trial of drying my almond meal on 3 types of liners and the parchment paper worked the best and was the fastest! Slowest? Plastic wrap. Yech, never again!!!!!

I use a lot of parchment paper - I have the fancy sil pat baking sheet liners but honestly I prefer the paper. I bake a lot

Parchment paper can be expensive. I've found that if I'm REALLY careful and gentle, I can wash and reuse a sheet at least once.

I found parchment paper that is siliconized - it is more durable and lasts through a few cycles of dehydrating. I use the same sheet for the same thing - don't recycle the chili parchment paper for pineapple bits, etc.

Mmmmm.... Chili pineapple

Chili mango, on the other hand.

Yep, I reuse mine as well But if you have Costco nearby, their rolls are cheap!! The price of a small roll in a grocery store for a brick of it.

I don't have a Costco membership, but will check BJ's (Wholesale Club, similar) or ask my sister to get some before I see her next time.

Thanks for the tip!

reading this thread was worth it for the links! I have a dehydrator and have been bitten with the DIY bug for food. I could use some guidance though from a good site.......