Today’s post is the second installment in our series “Frugal Experiments.” I call this series frugal experiments because I’m posting about frugal projects that I’m trying for the first time, so we’re essentially learning together. I can’t (and won’t) pretend to be an expert on something I’ve never done before, so whether it’s a success or a flop – you’ll see the results here in my Frugal Experiments series. Today’s Frugal Experiment is oven-dried strawberries!
I was a bit nervous to take this on since the closest I come to preserving food is freezer cooking. But, when I was able to price match a pound of strawberries for $0.99 (a total steal in my area), it gave me the extra push I needed to get this going.
What I used:
– 2 lbs of fresh strawberries
– 1/2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
First, I preheated my oven to 200 degrees. Then I washed and dried the strawberries thoroughly.
I removed the tops and sliced them into 4 slices lengthwise, as shown below. Now that I’ve done this myself, I actually recommend you slice each strawberry into no more than three slices. The extremely thin pieces are virtually impossible to get off of the pan after they’ve dried.
Then I placed the strawberries in a bowl and lightly tossed with lemon juice. I did this to prevent too much browning from occurring. I’m not sure if it helped since I have nothing to compare the results to since I’ve never dried strawberries in the oven before.
At this point I’m also second-guessing why I was so adamant about thoroughly drying the strawberries after washing, since I just wet them again in the lemon juice.
Then, I placed the sliced strawberries on cookie sheets (I’m aware of how dinged up my cookie sheets are – they’re well loved) and transferred them into the oven. I needed two cookie sheets for two lbs of sliced strawberries. So if you’re doing this in bulk, I’d bank on one cookie sheet per pound of strawberries.
Aside from slicing the strawberries too thinly, here’s where I made my biggest mistake – I completely neglected to use a nonstick surface like aluminum foil. I’m convinced this whole process would’ve required less elbow grease (when flipping) and my final results would’ve been much prettier if I would’ve used nonstick foil.
The total bake time is four hours. But, I set my kitchen timer in one hour increments so I could open the oven door to allow air to circulate in the oven, which is supposed to help with the drying process.
I also snapped a few pictures for you as a reference guide. I apologize for the photo quality – in my defense, it is impossible to take a good picture inside of an oven.
Here’s what the strawberries looked like at the one hour mark.
The two hour mark.
And the three hour mark.
I also flipped them at this point (and had a very hard time, thanks to neglecting to use nonstick foil). There was a bit of scraping involved, and I wasn’t able to flip a few of the thinnest slices since they were now one with the pan – so those were goners. Flipping was a far messier job than I expected.
And here they are at the final stage – the four hour mark.
Once I took the trays out of the oven, I noticed some of them were still quite sticky. The worrier in me caused me to furiously Google for the better part of an hour to make sure they were safe to store and consume. Everything I read said that a slightly sticky/chewy texture is fine.
As of the publishing of this post, the strawberries have been sitting in a mason jar for three days and they still look and taste great.
Tips:
– Cut the strawberries into thicker slices. They will be easier to flip. I think 3 slices per strawberry is a good # to shoot for.
– Use nonstick foil or parchment paper. Again, flipping will be easier.
Would I do this again?
Absolutely. I also intend to do this with other fruit in the future as well.
Have you dried strawberries this way before? Or, do you have any suggestions for future frugal experiment posts? If so, please let me know in the comments below!
Linking to: Old Fashioned Recipe Exchange
These look just like something that my kids would adore! Im totally pinning this to make for later!
Thanks, Steph! I think they’d definitely be great for kids!
I actually grow strawberries in my yard and let me tell ya, there is a WORLD of difference beetween homegrown and storebought. Needless to say, we hate to waste what we can’t immedieately eat so I actually have frozen our extras in the past. It is AH-mazing the smell you get when you open that tupperware – they smell like you just picked them.
However, freezing extra produce takes up a ton of valuable freezer space that I’d rather devote to meat and pre-made meals. So I am definately going to try the drying method with much of our extra garden produce this summer.
You might actually want to try parchment paper instead of foil – It’s not as delicate as foil so you’d probably struggle less with it ripping as you flip. And you also don’t need to grease it – added bonus!
Do you know if you can use frozen?
I’m honestly not sure. Sorry – wish I could help!
Yes, you can. Make sure you fully defrost the frozen whole strawberries before slicing and drying in the oven.
An interesting experiment. My problem being the costs of Electricity (Ireland) the four hours it would take to dry the strawberries would make them expensive as we don’t grow our own and would have to purchase them.
Nice idea but I guess I’ll give this a pass. Thank you for your effort in doing this.
Hi Deirdre, did you know that you can dry things in your car on a hot day? It sounds crazy, but if you place whatever you’d like to dehydrate on a pan and place it on your dashboard, you can dehydrate without any electricity at all. It’s pretty cool!
What a neat idea and use of natural heat! As for storing, I prefer re-using (repurposing) glass jars that most people throw away.
I do that when I make Jam. I save all the jars from other things, and re-use them for jams and jellies. 🙂
Okay, I’m going to follow your recipe because when I tried this a couple years ago..it was the biggest fail of my life.
How do they taste?
We’re planting strawberries this year and if all goes right, we should have more than we could ever eat before they go bad. I’m wondering how they compare to say… Kellogg’s dried fruit cereals (which I am not a fan).
Thanks girl for doing all the leg work!
They taste great. They’re quite a bit more tart than just regular strawberries since I used lemon juice. The texture is totally different to the Kellogg’s dried cereal.
Thank you, Jazmin. (LOVE your name!) This is most timely as, just yesterday I priced dehydrated strawberries in the store. Somewhere between ouch! and boinnnng! was the price. Also, the grocery has a great sale on strawberries today. I think I know what I’ll be doing later. I appreciate all that it took for you to make this tutorial. Thank you for sharing. God bless.
I may try this if I get a good haul of strawberries. I wonder if it would have helped to use cooling racks (like what you put cookies on) instead of cookie sheets? Might help with air flow and also less surface for the strawberries to stick to.
You MUST try dried watermelon. It’s to die for. Slice it into tortilla-chip-sized pieces, about 1/4″ thick. I usually leave mine in the oven overnight on 170 – the lowest temp my oven has. I use cooling racks and also give them a quick spray of cooking oil before putting the watermelon on. This stuff comes out like candy!
Hi, I live in England, and paid over £2 for a small bag of dried strawberries, they were delicious, but expensive for a 3 oz pack. Will try drying them with shop bought until our plants crop next year, but, I too am concerned about the electricity cost of having the oven on for so long. Many thanks for your endeavours.
If you have good sunlight, why can’t you build a dehydrator using a crate wrapped in clear plastic?? Never done it myself but have seen it done.
Dar
Like my neighbours in England & Ireland (I’m in Scotland), the cost of Electricity is high. So what about doing this whilst cooking other things, i.e. filling your oven.
I often buy 2 whole chickens. Then cook both and during that time roasting other veg in batches. My oven is on for 2 hours but I get about 3-4 nights of meals from that investment in electricity. It also saves time on buys work/school nights when we have to run back out the door for clubs/ sports.
I tried this first on a dark cookie sheet. They came out delicious but I wanted to try some other ways of doing this. I put them on foil. Bad idea! They stuck and shriveled a lot! This time I put them one stoneware and sprinkled a bit of salt on them. We’ll see if this works better. Also put it on convection setting..
Strawberries were delicious. I did not add lemon juice and they did not turn brown. I did use parchment paper and some salt. The paper is and extra bonus as it is very pretty!
Only just found this site 🙂 but thinking of doing these to add to a white chocolate fudge!
I just finished these using fresh picked, straight from the farm berries. Wonderful! I did one tray on parchment paper and one tray straight onto my well seasoned stoneware. I also used the convection setting on my oven. It gets very hot here in the summer and I try not to use the stove or the oven too much, aside from the cost of electricity, so I’m going to experiment with a solar oven and see what happens.
I am so glad it worked well for you! 🙂
Thank-you Jazmin. I’m researching how to dry strawberries. Yours was the first post where you admitted your mistakes. Thank-you for doing that, it’s helped me know what not to do. I’m wondering why the posters who are worried about the cost of electricity haven’t tried home-made solar ovens. Your car is one but you can find all sorts of plans for solar ovens on the internet. You can even make solar ovens that will heat your home while you cook.