Drying Fruit and Meat Without a Dehydrator

By

T&T Grandma

Yep, I have a couple dehydrators and when I have just a few items to do, I don't drag them out. I keep separate ones for meat that are not used for the other foods. Contamination is something I am not willing to contend with. Intense bleaching of the screens between food items and it would be o.k.

I have a digital regular oven and use that a lot. Set at 190 Degrees and that is the fruit/vegi temp also on the larger dehydrators. Meat has a minimum temp for safety, check a meat thermometer, it states that on it.

I love 'sundried' tomatoes. I do not do any of it outside, just quickly toss it into the oven.

By

Bama_Jypsy1

Yep! Just slice the fruit or veggie very thin. Place on a piece of covered tin or cookie sheets, then cover with a thin sheet and place out in the sun and let Mother Nature do her work. I've been doing this for years. I was taught by my grandmother when I was a child. You can also put them inside a vehicle and keep the windows up, they tend to dry faster when done this way. It takes several days of putting the items outside to dry them thoroughly. If they aren't dried completely, they will mold.

By

Deeli

There are lots of ideas in the ThriftyFun archives below the comments here. You could also try Googling 'how to dehydrate fruit in the oven'. I liked the one idea in the archives below for dehydrating meat :-)

Does anyone know how to dehydrate fruit (especially plums to make prunes) without a dehydrator? We are dry here until mid-october at least! Is there another way for jerky, too?