My dehydrated bananas
Dehydrating your own food (such as the banana) is a great way to save money AND to build up your own food storage. Here’s why…
By taking advantage of food when it’s on SALE, will save you money!
By preserving your food in season will enable you to eat the same during the winter!
For example, we recently purchased a large quantity of bananas while they were on sale for a very low price. We dehydrated them because they make a great snack (dehydrated banana chips) and they taste good in cereal.
Once they are dehydrated and stored in a reasonably air-tight zip-lock bag or canning jars, their shelf life will be about 1-year without issue. More or less…
How To Make Dehydrated Bananas
The recipe is simple.
Slice the banana into thin 1/8 inch slices, about the thickness of two quarters. Use a thin sharp knife or you can speed the process with a banana slicer.
Pretreating the banana slices with a citric acid solution or lemon juice solution helps to keep them light-colored and serves as an antimicrobial treatment. To make a citric acid solution, mix 1 teaspoon of citric acid into 1 quart of cold water. OR, use a lemon juice solution which is made by mixing equal parts of lemon juice and cold water. To pretreat the bananas, soak the slices in a bowl with the solution for ten minutes. Remove and set aside to drain before filling dehydrator trays.
Then place the slices on your dehydrator trays and set the temperature to 130 degrees-F.
Dehydrate until leathery. Thicker slices will take longer. Sample them as you near the end of the dehydrating process.
The actual time to dehydrate depends on how moist the food is, the thickness of the pieces, the humidity in the air around you, and the temperature setting of the dehydrator. For banana slices, I found that it takes between 6 – 10 hours with our Excalibur dehydrator depending on the conditions mentioned.
How To Store Dehydrated Banana Slices
We like to store many of our dehydrated foods in canning jars. The lid keeps the air out, and the glass is perfect for quickly identifying what’s inside.
For very long term food storage, vacuum seal bags will significantly extend the shelf life. Also, some vacuum sealers have an attachment for canning-jar lids to remove the air…
Dehydrated Banana
Modern Survival Blog