How to Dehydrate Frozen Vegetables

I went to a Meijer 40% off store closing sale and came back with a ton of frozen vegetables. I didn’t have  freezer space for them because I also loaded up on frozen seafood (a sad fact when you live in land locked Central Ohio.) My plan all along was to dehydrate the frozen vegetables, vacuum seal them in mason jars, and use them in crock pot meals. Our slow cooker is the hardest working member of the Lazy Budget Chef Kitchen and Thunderdome.
 
I flip flopped about writing this tutorial because I was afraid it might make me sound like some sort of hoarder or weirdo. I could see the flood of comments on the post telling me buying a freezer is easier. True but our condo is small and we often have storm related blackouts.

We haven’t had a major power outage in awhile and I was lulled into complicity. As I was mulling over how to fit a chest freezer into our condo, our neighborhood had a three hour power outage as I was unloading the dehydrator on a beautiful sunny day.

I took it as a sign to write this post.
  
Next time if someone wants to send me a Sign you don’t have to go so such extremes. A text message will do just fine!

How to Dehydrate Frozen Peas, Corn, Onions, and Green Peppers

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I am using this exact Nesco Snackmaster Pro dehydrator for this tutorial. (Disclosure: I am including affiliate links in this post for your convenience.)  My husband researched portable dehydrators and give me the Nesco because Consumer Reports rated it as the best dehydrator of the models they tested. I have to agree. I have put my Nesco through its paces! It goes almost nonstop when it comes time to preserve my summer vegetable and herb garden and it is still going strong - unlike the dehydrator the Nesco replaced.

The Precious! 

You may have to tweak the temperature and drying time depending upon the brand of your dehydrator and what frozen vegetable you want to dehydrate.

If you don’t have Clean Screens for your dehydrator trays, I suggest you buy them! They will make your life so much easier when the small frozen food becomes even smaller dehydrator food and falls through unlined trays. You can buy dehydrator tray screens for several brands of dehydrators dehydrator trays,. Or if you don't have enough Clean Screens and you really need to start dehydrating a bunch of on mega sale frozen food before the Amazon truck arrives, you can cut a piece of parchment paper (you can buy parchment paper here) to fit over your dehydrator trays.

I forgot to take a photo of the clean parchment paper screens before I loaded the dehydrator. Oops.

How to Dry and Store Frozen Vegetables

1.  Fill your dehydrator trays with frozen vegetables. If you don’t want to defrost them you don’t have to.  Both the frozen or unfrozen vegetables will take a little longer to dehydrate since they have a higher water content than normal (ice, yo.)  No big deal. Seriously. No big deal.

 I overloaded my dehydrator trays and didn't leave space between the vegetables like you should. This is another reason why it took a little longer to dry my frozen vegetables.

2. Set the dehydrator temperature to 145 digress Fahrenheit and turn it on.

3. Due to the higher water content the vegetables may take up to 8 hours or longer to fully dehydrate. In all honestly I didn’t time mine. I loaded the dehydrator trays in the afternoon and let it go overnight and until the next morning when I had time to check on it and empty it.

 In this example I'm dehydrating frozen corn. I use the same step by step tutorial to dehydrate frozen peas, onions, and green peppers.

4. Fill glass mason jars with the dehydrated vegetables to use as needed.

I don't need a canning ring to store food in vacuum sealed mason jars but it keeps my labels (a circle cut from scrap paper or cereal boxes) in place.

5. For a long term storage option, vacuum seal the mason jars using a Foodsaver vacuum sealer like this one with this mason jar vacuum sealing attachment.


If you'd rather buy than DIY, check out the following ideas - and more! - below!


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