Ask a QuestionHere are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community or ask a new question.
I got a food dehydrator for Christmas and have been experimenting with it recently. I was doing some research on blanching and if it is necessary. It sounds like it is very necessary for some vegetables, like potatoes and tomatoes and less so for others, like zucchini or onions. Like freezing, if you don't blanch before processing, enzymes, bacteria and other unwanted substances can remain in your dried food. This can reduce the nutritional content or even cause the food to spoil. So, I'll choose to blanch some veggies before drying.
Water blanching, which is what I usually do with tomatoes, is not recommended for dehydrating. They recommend steam or microwave. I recently got an Instant Pot pressure cooker with a steamer basket. It seems like the perfect solution for blanching. Online, they recommend cooking for one minute at the highest pressure for vegetables. But that is for full cooking, not just for blanching.
Any recommendations on what to set my Instant Pot to in order to blanch vegetables like potatoes, tomatoes and carrots?
Thanks!
You can steam the tomatoes for 0 minutes and then do a natural release. The skins will slip off
Hi! I'm dying to know how the sweet potato chips turned out!?
Well, just tried blanching carrot rounds 1/4-1/2" slices for 1 min. All were completely cooked, some too much. Would think 0 min might work.
I just did yellow green beans we bought at a Farmer's market on Saturday and snapped the same day but stored in baggies in the frigerator for 3 days. I washed the beans, put a cup of water and steamed them in a steamer basket in my Instant Pot on high pressure for 0 minutes and let pressure release after 10 minutes which cooked them. So my second batch doing all the same things above except releasing them immediately after IP beeped, has the beans on the crispy side. After they cool, I am going to bag them in freezer bags and freeze for a few days and then try thawing them and cooking them again in IP for either "0" time and release after 10 minutes or "1" minute cook time and releasing immediately after it beeps - I will let you know how it goes as I have 2 batches to experiment with besides the cooked batch.
