Dehydrating Celery

For some people, the subject of dehydrating is a real yawner, but other people seem to feel that it is just about the only way to preserve food. I am somewhere in the middle. Dehydrating has its good points and some bad points. Dehydrated foods does save storage space as opposed to other methods of preserving foods, you don't really need any special equipment like you do with other preservation methods, and it is a very simple thing to do. However, dehydrating does not retain the taste and texture of the food like canning and freezing does. It also takes more time and attention. To me, being diverse in the way you preserve food is always a good thing.

There are several ways to dehydrate food. You can do it the traditional way by placing it in the sun, or you can use your kitchen oven. The third way, is to use a dehydrator. This past Christmas my darling hubs bought me a new dehydrator. Its a fairly inexpensive one as far as dehydrators go, but it works fine and gets the job done.

I have been asked by a few people how to use a dehydrator, so I thought that I would write about how I do it. Note: You cannot rehydrate celery as you can other foods, but it is good  in salads and soups.

First cut off the root end of the celery. Don't throw the end away. You can regrow your celery indoors which I will blog about on another day. Clean the celery stalks as you normally would.

 

Chop the celery into ½ inch crescents.

 

Place celery into boiling water (blanching) for 1-2 minuets.

 

After removing celery from boiling water, place it immediately into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process. 

Lightly pat the blanched celery dry using a clean cloth.

 Place celery onto dehydrator trays in a single layer.

 

Dry until crispy which takes 6-10 hours. After celery is fully dried, remove trays from dehydrator. Allow to cool about 10-15 minutes. Put dehydrated celery into a glass jar and screw on lid. Store in a cool, dry, place away from direct sunlight.

Enjoy and Thanks for reading. :-)