MYO: Sundried Tomatoes

Would this work with a food dehydrater? If so any estimate of time and heat setting?

# Food dehydrator: Arrange the pieces on each rack so that air can circulate, preferably with the pieces not touching each other, then Turn the dehydrator on and enjoy the aroma. If your food drier has a thermostat, set it for 140 degrees F. It will take 3 to 8 hours.

# Oven: You can also do it in the oven, preheat the oven to 150 degrees F (65 degrees C or gas mark 1). If you don't have these settings, just use the lowest setting you've got.
Arrange the tomatoes on cooling racks, spread out, not touching each other. Close the oven door, It takes about 10 to 20 hours, but you'll need to check periodically, including rotating the shelves and moving them up or down to get even heating.
If you want to speed it up, you can bump the heat up to as high as 200 degrees F ( 93 degrees C), but you'll need to watch them much more closely.

do you have to use oil?

Originally Posted by dabrown54

do you have to use oil?

i don't like storing tomatoes in the oil either, so i researched it and you dont have to use oil to store sun dried tomatoes. But you do need to check on the tomato for a week or so after drying, and it is also recommended to use a vacuum seal method for storing, and freezing.

I cant verify if this is accurate because we dont have a garden and i wont be going up to the pick your own garden for a few weeks still...its over a 2 hour drive so i have to be ready to buy and put up a lot when i go. i do plan to test this out though so it will probably be late june to early july when i go.

I have a tip for slicing fruits for the dehydrator. I use an egg slicer to get the slices uniform. You can use them on any fruit and it will help with drying because they are the same size.
I love to dehydrate blueberries and strawberries and add them to the granola recipe.

I like to use cherry tomatoes for this because I get so very very many of them.