Dehydrating Food: A Beginner's Guide

by Jay Bills, Shirley Bills

With the easy-to-follow, step-by-step directions here, anyone can have fun, save money, and create delicious meals by dehydrating food. Learn the basic methods—sun drying, oven drying, net bag, and commercial food dehydrators—before moving on to drying herbs for tea, making your own tasty (and healthier) jerky, and so much more. Also included is a section on the nutritional benefits of drying food. With 164 recipes ranging from breads to desserts, soups to pies, and cereals to entrees, Dehydrating Food is a book for anyone who is interested in learning how to save money and create delicious meals by drying their own food.

Genres: Cookbooks, Food, Cooking

300 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 2010

Reviews

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like how this book is set up, and the information it gives for beginners. I got a dehydrator for my birthday, and am excited to try the techniques as well as the recipes. When my tomatoes are going bonkers, I hope to make some dried for future meals.

[Allison Jones-Lo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good information. I'm glad I read this book before buying a lot of supplies. It is not for me but I have a whole new appreciation for those who do dehydrate! This is the only reason I gave 4 stars instead of 5.

[Gregj · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very disappointed with this book. More than half the book was devoted to recipes which only highlighted the use of substituting one dehydrated ingredient with it's fresh counterpart. Since re-hydrating fruits or vegetables is done following in almost an identical manner, this became very redundant very quickly.

The section on dehydrating meats was only three pages long, no examples and you only learned that dehydrated meats with the exception of making jerky, needed to be fully cooked prior to dehydrating. No examples of how to make jerky or other meats, no temperatures or times. Completely lacking.

Also no coverage of using a solar dehydrator. Only a brief mention of sun drying on racks.

The only useful information in my opinion was the charts on fruits and vegetables showing times needed to dry various items.

[Susan Allegrini · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can not wait to get started! This book was very helpful and easy to understand!

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first 65 pages talks about the reasons for dehydrating and the process while the last 100 pages gives recipes for using dehydrated foods. A good basic instruction guide with ohotos.

[Henry · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found the charts moderately informative but the recipes were completely unhelpful.

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Decided to purchase print edition after finding the library ebook to be extremely useful.

[Karen Burkett]

Good basic info