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Carrots are one of my favorite things to dehydrate, and if you want to learn how to dehydrate carrots, you’re in the right place! In this article I show you how to dehydrate carrots in a couple of different ways. I go each of the steps, and then show what the carrots look like in final form. I also reveal how much yield there is from fresh to dehydrated carrots.
How to Dehydrate Sliced Carrots
In this article, I show you how to dehydrate sliced carrots.
The Carrots I Dehydrated
I bought a 5 lb bag of carrots. I canned 5 pints of carrots and then dehydrated what was left. While I didn’t weigh the carrots, I estimate that I dehydrated about 2.5 pounds of carrots, which was approximately 6 cups of raw, sliced carrots.
Preparing Carrots for Dehydrating
To prepare the carrots for dehydrating, I cut the ends off the carrots, peeled them, and then sliced them about 1/3″ thick.
I then brought a pot of water to a boil, and boiled the carrots for about 3 minutes, until they turned a bright red color.
After 3 minutes they were nice and firm, and a very vibrant orange color.
I drained them, and then dumped them into a bowl of ice water, and then drained them again. This is what they looked like after blanching:
Dehydrating Sliced Carrots
I put the carrots fairly close together on the dehydrator tray, but avoided overlapping any. Rather than putting them directly on the trays, I used the mesh screens so that the carrots wouldn’t fall through as they shrunk during the dehydration process. I ended up with four trays of carrots.
I had two trays that were more heavily loaded, so I put them at the top. My Nesco dehydrator has the heat source and fan at the top, so the top trays dry faster. I set the dehydrator for 135 degrees Fahrenheit and then went to bed to let them dehydrate overnight.
The Finished Dehydrated Carrots
After about 11 hours, here’s what I woke up to:
While slightly pliable, the carrots were completely dry. To give you some perspective on how much they shrunk, here’s a picture that compares the before and after.
Now remember that I started with about 6 cups of carrots. After dehydrating, the carrots shrunk down to about 3/4 cup.
Fresh carrots are about 85% water, so they are great for food storage because they shrink down so much. Think about how many pounds of carrots you can fit into a half gallon or even quart-size jar. I love this because it means that I can store large amounts of food in a small space.
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.