This post includes affiliate links.
It’s citrus season, so it’s a great time to dehydrate lemons, limes, oranges, grapefruit, and more! This article is a beginner’s guide to dehydrating limes. I show you the basic process that I used to dehydrate limes, share how the limes look at various times throughout the dehydrating process, and finally share how many limes it takes to fill up a pint jar of dehydrated lime slices.
A Beginner’s Guide to Dehydrating Limes
Preparing Limes for Dehydrating
Now let’s talk about how to prepare limes for dehydrating.
I started off by slicing the limes using my mandolin.
I initially sliced them using the thinnest slicing blade, but that didn’t work too well. I ended up with several partial slices of lime. I switched to the thicker blade, which still resulted in 1/4″ or thinner limes.
How to Dehydrate Limes in a Food Dehydrator
I placed the sliced limes on the dehydrator tray, leaving a small amount of space between each lime.
Dehydrating Temperature and Time
I set my dehydrator to 125 degrees.
Note: In this article I’m using my Nesco dehydrator. Read my article, Nesco Dehydrator Review for more information on this dehydrator.
How Long Does it Take to Dehydrate Limes?
Here’s what the limes looked like after 3 hours in the dehydrator.
At this point, I rotated the trays to help the limes dehydrate more evenly. I put them back into the dehydrator. Here’s what they looked like after 12 hours in the dehydrator:
They were almost completely dry, but not quite. It was time for me to go to bed, so I reduced the temperature to 110 degrees, and then went to bed.
When I got up in the morning, the limes were completely dry. I was able to easily snap the limes in half.
Dehydrated Limes Yield
I ended up with 1 quart and 1 pint of dehydrated lime slices, from 2 pounds of limes. From a planning perspective, it’s good to plan to buy 2 pounds of limes for each quart jar.
Pro Tip: If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy my article, How to Dehydrate Citrus, where I demonstrate dehydrating oranges and grapefruit.
This small, easy-to-store vacuum sealer is made for mason jars. It’s cordless, simple to use, and a great tool for long-term food storage.
👉 Check it out here.
Here are some of my favorite dehydrating tools
Thank you for reading this article. I hope you found it helpful as you strive to stock your pantry with delicious home-dehydrated food! Here are some tools that I use that I’m hoping you’ll also find helpful. These are affiliate links, so if you do decide to use any of them, I’ll earn a commission. Please know that these are the tools that I recommend and believe in 100%!
The Nesco FD-75A Snackmaster Pro Food Dehydrator was my first dehydrator, and still one of my favorites. I actually have two of them! If I was only going to buy one dehydrator and was on a strict budget, this would be it. I love it because it’s very reasonably priced, and is expandable up to 12 trays. I recommend starting with the basic system that comes with 5 trays. Then expand by buying additional trays, fruit leather sheets, and mesh screens.
The Cosori Premium Dehydrator is my most recent dehydrator purchase. In many respects, it’s superior to the Nesco since it is constructed with stainless steel, which is always a winner. I love the ease of use, and how precise it is when it comes to setting the temperature. It’s also versatile in that you can remove some of the racks. This makes it possible to use it for more than just dehydrating. As an example, you can use the Cosori dehydrator to make yogurt, something you definitely can’t do with any of the stackable dehydrators.
Nesco FD-1018A Gardenmaster Pro Food Dehydrator – I’ve had my eye on this dehydrator for a LONG time. I don’t have space for another dehydrator, so I’m just waiting for one of my dehydrators to die so I can buy this one! What I really love about this dehydrator is that it expands to up to 30 (yes, 30!) trays. At 1,000 watts, it’s more powerful than the two dehydrators listed above. If you only have the means to buy one dehydrator, and have limited space to dehydrate, I recommend this one since you can dehydrate a huge amount of food at a time.
The FoodSaver Vacuum Sealing Machine is a great way to preserve the food you’ve dehydrated. The machine I use is no longer available. I chose this one because it’s a great price and includes a port that makes it possible to use the accessory kit linked to below. Since I store all my dehydrated food in mason jars, the jar sealer attachments are a must. But with this device, you can also use food storage bags if you’re short on mason jars, or prefer to seal you dehydrated food in bags.
The FoodSaver Handheld Cordless Food Vacuum Sealer is a great option for those with limited space. I keep mine charged up in my kitchen, so I can easily reseal jars every time I use some of my dehydrated food. While I still love my larger FoodSaver, from a convenience perspective, this one can’t be beat.
The FoodSaver Accessory Kit is a must if, like me, you store dehydrated food in mason jars. You can use this kit with either of the vacuum sealers linked to above. If you can’t get the one I linked to on Amazon, check out this selection of options available on Walmart.
💬 I’d love to hear from you!
Have you tried this yourself? Have a question or tip to share? Leave a comment below — your experience or question could help someone else, too!
Rebecca,
Thanks for the tutorial on how to dehydrate limes. I’ve done a lot of canning, fermenting, have made kombucha and vinegars, etc., but not much dehydrating so I’m learning more about that now. Your tutorial was one of the few articles that actually showed pictures and described what you were seeing at each time and temp which is what I needed to know to get started. I cleaned my limes with boiling water to remove the wax, etc. and they felt clean and smelled really good when I finished rinsing them well. I tried my mandolin, but I think warming them caused the skins to get too soft, and I couldn’t get it to cut. So, I cut them with a sharp knife to a 1/4″. I was able to fill all four of my Corsori dehydrator trays (looks similar to the one in your pictures) and set it to 125 degrees for 6 hours. I rotated the trays as you suggested and then decided to lower the temp to 110 for 4 hours since I went to bed and didn’t want to over dry them. They were not done but very close so I have them on 125 degrees to dehydrate another 4-6 hours while I keep an eye on them. I opted to order a mason jar sealer but went with a different one than you listed so I apologize if you don’t get a commission for that. I have a lot items stored in other sealing jars, sealed bags and mylar, but I really liked the idea of using some of my many mason jars as well and didn’t realize there were sealers for them. I’ve always wanted to do freeze drying, but the expense is prohibitive. Thanks again for the information!
Maren, thanks so much for your thoughtful comment. I do think that boiling the limes softens them and makes it harder to use a mandolin – and yet is necessary to remove the wax. It may be you boiled them a bit too long, but regardless, it sounds like you found a good solution. One thing I haven’t tried but that may work is to refrigerate them a bit after boiling to see if that firms them up a bit. Maybe even 10-20 minutes in the freezer would work. It sounds like maybe you have a Cosori that is a stackable model, and if so, yes, rotating trays is a good idea. Note that you don’t have to do that, but dehydrating will take longer if you don’t rotate. Note that especially if using a lower temperature, you really can’t over dehydrate, which is nice. Even at 120-125, you should be fine dehydrating overnight. I’m glad you got a mason jar sealer, and no worries on the commission, though I appreciate you thinking of it! I agree with you about freeze drying! One would be nice, but they are super expensive, take up a lot of space, and use a lot of electricity. I do think that you’ll find that dehydrating when combined with your other preservation methods will do quite nicely! I also think that you’ll find that with dehydrating, you’ll be able to store much more food in less space, which is one of my favorite things about it. I just dehydrated 10 pounds of diced potatoes and after dehydrating, they fit into a half gallon mason jar. I have also recently gotten into dehydrating mashed potatoes (blog post coming soon!) and 6 pounds of mashed potatoes fits into a pint. I love it! So welcome to the world of food dehydrating. I’m guessing you’ll love it as much as I do!