The Nesco Food Dehydrator -- Dry Your Own Fruit and Vegetables

As a long-distance backpacker, my husband has to decide what foods to take along for healthy and interesting meals while keeping the total weight of his pack as low as possible.

This year, in preparation for his 2 week trip out west, he purchased this Nesco Dehydrator and Jerky Maker to dehydrate vegetables and fruits for his journey.   

He figured the cost was less than half of what he'd pay for dried fruits and vegetables from the grocery store, and much less expensive than the specialty freeze-dried backpacking food. 

The whole drying process using the Nesco Dehydrator was very simple.

After he left for his trip, it was my turn to experiment with the Nesco American Harvest Food Dehydrator (see zucchini chips photo, below)!

Dried vegetables have a shorter shelf life than dried fruit. Because of their lower sugar and acid content, they're more prone to spoiling.   But with careful processing and storing, they can last for a few months.  

As with drying fruits, start with fresh vegetables and process them as quickly as possible, paring away bad areas and peeling them if you prefer.   You'll get better results with many vegetables if you blanch them first.   This will reduce dehydrating time, and also make it faster to rehydrate the vegetables when you're ready to use them.

My personal preference would be to freeze or can vegetables for later use if I have the time, but drying vegetables is also a reasonable way to preserve them.    Dehydrated vegetables are good in stews and soups, and make excellent backpacking food (as experienced by my husband).

Also I discovered that making zucchini chips in the dehydrator is a wonderful use for the many monster zucchinis that we have had in the garden this summer!

If you'll be dehydrating a lot of fruit or vegetables, you may want to buy extra Add-A-Trays.   You can stack up to 12 trays of fruits and vegetables with this dehydrator.    The drying time will be longer with more trays, but still more efficient than dehydrating in multiple batches.

You can also buy Fruit Roll Sheets to make your own fruit leather or fruit roll ups.   These also make good bottom protectors for your dehydrator if you're using messy, drippy foods. 

The Nesco American Harvest Food Dehydrator has worked very well for us!   It's easy to use, simple to clean, and we've had great results producing good quality dried vegetables and fruits.   The booklet that comes with it explains thoroughly and clearly how to get the best results from using this appliance.

Two minor drawbacks:

• There's no on-off switch.  The unit is on when plugged in, and off when unplugged.
• I can smell drying food throughout the house if I don't keep the dehydrator closed off in its own room (we use it out in our sunroom).   Drying fruit smells better than drying vegetables, but still, 10 hours of smelling canteloupe or bananas as they dry is a little too intense!

But they are indeed minor drawbacks.  The Nesco Food Dehydrator is an excellent appliance for drying fruits and vegetables.