Late last fall (about mid-November) I dehydrated some carrots. My dehydrating book said you could steam blanch them before dehydrating or you could dehydrate them raw. So I did some of each. If you want to read the whole post, go here: Dehydrating carrots. Now it’s been 10 months and the carrots have been stored in a mason jar in my dark food room for most of that time, but something curious has happened. The steam blanched carrots still look very much the same, but the raw carrots are fading. They are losing color. Take a look:
Check out the color loss on the raw carrots! And they were stored in my dark food room the whole time.
So I asked my local extension agent about it. We’re pretty close, the extension office and me. She said that the blanching stops some enzymatic process and that is why the raw carrots have lost color. According to her, there should be little difference nutritionally, but there’s obviously quite a difference in the appearance, so the blanched carrots are much more appealing to eat. And that’s definitely true.
So, even though it’s a bit more work, I think blanching carrots for dehydrating is worth it for the much more appealing and storage stable end product. I’ll be blanching all my dehydrated carrots from now on.
Keep preparing! Angela
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I’m thinking that if they are the same nutrition-wise, I’m not going to do that extra work. I ONLY use mine in soup and stews, so color is not so much a factor anyway.
As long as the carrot season is, and as well as they over winter in the ground, 6 mos is about as long as they need to last dried anyway.
Since blanching saves nutritional value and flavor, it seems blanching would be the way to go when storing food. After all, we blanch when we can foods, so it makes sense. I really want stored food to retain nutritional value.
Very cool experiment and results – thanks for sharing the info :)
I was wondering if you are knowledgable as to whether the heating of dry foods for an hour in jars at 200 degrees in the oven, then capped & ringed, is applicable to all types of dried foods, or just individual dried items like, flour, salt, pancake mix, etc. Also will the leavening stay good for the projected 30 years that you can store food this way. Can the mixes like dried cheeses, pasta, TVP, etc also stay good when mixed together to have a meal in a jar?
I would personally not use the heat and seal method on my dry foods. I’d look into vacuum sealing the jars with something like a foodsaver jar sealer
or sealing the meals in mylar bags with oxygen absorbers
. Flour keeps fairly well, Salt is indefinite, but pancake mix is only recommended to be stored for about 5 years or so. Some people say that old baking soda isn’t as powerful as fresh stuff, but I regularly use baking soda that’s over 5 years old with no problems. Just finished off a big tub of baking powder that was 8 years old by the time I finished it. So leavenings by themselves store really well, but I’m not sure if mixing the leavening in with the flour (as in a pancake mix) would change storage life.
The dehydrating instructions I have say that if you STEAM OR BLANCH the food before dehydrating it, it will REHYDRATE FASTER. My PhD niece who does genetic work says it is because the cellular structure is changed in the steaming/blanching, so it allows hot water to enter faster later on. I blanched green bell peppers before dehydrating them – and they DO rehydrate faster – even with our hard water.
My first attempt @only dehydrating carrots. I find it hard to know when they are done. Do they really have to be brittle @ snap or can they be a little pliable?
They can be a little pliable. Mine are usually brittle, but I live in a very dry climate. The more dry they are the longer they keep, but carrots dried until leathery are dry enough to store.
I have a bunch of carrots to do and I was thinking of grating them. I thought they’d work great for carrot cake, once rehydrated. I wouldn’t really want cooked ones for that. I guess since the fading doesn’t really matter for nutrition, and also it would be really difficult to blanch grated carrots, I’m with the first commenter, blanching isn’t a priority use of my time.
Then again, maybe you could put all the grated carrots in a deep colander and simply dip it in a large pot of boiling water for a few seconds. Then you could also use them for soups, etc. Would love to hear thoughts about this from anyone.
Thank you! :)
Natalia–this is crazy, but I was just thinking about dehydrating shredded carrots a couple of days ago. I probably would shred them and then blanch them real quick. You might need cheesecloth or something to keep them together in the boiling water. Or a wire type colander so the shreds don’t escape out the little holes. If you do this, let me know how it goes!