Ready for cleaning and cutting

This past weekend I played around with dehydrating potatoes and other vegetables.  The process is pretty simple.

1. Clean and peal potatoes. (Pealing is optional as the peals can be left on for their nutritional values)
2.  Blanch the sliced or diced potatoes until fully cooked roughly about 8-10 min.
3. Dunk the potatoes into a bowl of ice cold water to seal in the nutrients
4. Place potatoes on paper towels to help absorb some of the water.
5. Please potatoes in dehydrator
6.  Set your dehydrator to 125°F and 135°F  (or per your food dehydrator’s instructions).
7. Dehydrating will take 6-14 hours to complete depending on the size of drying potatoes.
8. Stir potatoes on tray every few hours to check on them and to make sure they are dehydrating evenly.
9. Once completed place in airtight container to be used at a later time.
10. Re-hydration takes 15 – 20 min give or take the size of the chunks.

Potato Chunks ready for the dehydrator.

I found that depending on the cut you choose will determine how long they will need to be left in the dehydrator.  No matter the cut they will be ready when they feel crunchy and or like leather. If they are squishy but hard on the outside they are not done yet.

I started out with potato chunks none of which were  of a uniformed size or shape. I filled a single tray to start  and those  took about 8 hours to fully dehydrate.  I also experimented with slices and even shaved. The slices while cooking they fell apart and became more of a mess than they were worth. If I were to use them again I would make them thicker. From my research they should be 1/8th inch in size at a minimum. The shaved potato bits dried out very quickly but tended to turn into a blob while blanching.  These would be great to add in for taste and added nutrients but would not create a hearty potato meal.

Overall the experiment was a success and I will be able to continue dehydrating more potatoes in the very near future. I will be dehydrating both the chunks and the shavings so that they can be used in various meal recipes.

What is your favorite way to dehydrate potatoes and what recipes do you like to use them in?

Happy Dehydrating

Adam

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