How To: Dehydrate Carrots
Dehydrating carrots is a great way to preserve them for later use. By removing the water content, they can be stored for months without spoiling, plus dehydrated carrots are super easy to rehydrate and cook with.
It may seem like a waste of effort to dehydrate a long storing vegetable like carrots, but I am here to tell you that it’s not!
Carrots are excellent candidates for dehydrating, and you’ll be glad to have them in your pantry, wether they were sourced fresh from your garden, purchased from a farmers market, or bought in bulk because of a great sale.
This guide to dehydrating carrots is dedicated to candidacy!
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Tips
- Pick the freshest, most vibrant foods you can when dehydrating. The most important reason for this is that the fresher the food that goes into the dehydrator, the fresher the flavor and texture when reconstituted.
- This guide includes pre-treating the raw carrots with a quick steam or hot water blanche and ice bath. While the blanching step is optional, I highly recommend it for a better, longer lasting finished product. Unblanched carrots lose their color and flavor within months of drying, while blanched dehydrated carrots can last over a year.
- Aim for consistency in your slice or dice. I say it with every dehydrating recipe I post, but it bears repeating! The more consistent the pieces you are dehydrating, the more consistent the drying time, the final result, and the reconstituted product.
- Â I recommend storing the dehydrated carrots in smaller jars – because dehydration removes so much volume, a lot of carrots fit in one jar. Large jars mean more opening and closing the jar and exposing your dehydrated veg to the air which can degrade the quality.
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Key Ingredients
Carrots: If you’re growing your own carrots, choose a variety with long, tapered deep-orange roots. Danvers, Tendersweet, or Royal Chantenay are great varieties. If you’re not growing your own, look for firm, fresh carrots with bright orange color. Discard any soft carrots or carrots with obvious pest damage.
How To Dehydrate Carrots
Prepare Carrots:
- Place a steam basket in a large heavy-bottomed pot and add water to just below the level of the basket. Cover and place over medium-high heat to bring to a boil.
- Meanwhile, trim the green fronds from the tops of the carrots, and scrub away any soil. For carrots grown in my own garden, I simply clean them well before proceeding. Purchased carrots get peeled before dehydrating here, because I don’t know the conditions they were grown in, but that is up to you! Avoid soaking your carrots in water as this can cause nutrient leaching.
- Dice, slice, or shred your carrots as desired.
Blanch Carrots:
- Once the pot reaches a boil, carefully transfer diced or sliced carrots into the steam basket and process for 3-4 minutes, opt for 2 minute blanch if you’re working with shredded carrots.
- Meanwhile, prepare a large bowl by filling it with cold water and ice cubes.
- Transfer the blanched carrots from the steam basket into the ice bath. Allow cut carrots to cool completely in the ice bath before straining well and blotting dry with a clean kitchen towel.
Dehydrate:
- Spread prepared carrot pieces on dehydrator trays, it’s important to keep it in a single layer, again, to improve drying time, efficiency, and consistency.
- Place the trays in the food dehydrator and dry at 125f for 6-8 hours or until completely dried. To test the carrots for doneness, remove a few pieces, allow them to cool to room temperature, then check out the texture – they should be very hard and brittle.
Store + Condition:
- Once the carrot pieces are completely dried, allow the racks to cool in the dehydrator for 30-45 minutes before transferring to an airtight, long-term storage container. This allows the heat to dissipate and reduces the chances of condensation forming in your storage container.
- Once the dried carrot pieces are in storage containers, shake the jar each day or so for a week and observe the container for signs of moisture. If there are no signs of moisture, you’re good to go, place them in a cool dark place for long-term storage! If there is evidence of moisture in the container, you must add the carrots back to the dehydrator and dry it longer. After they’ve been dried the second time, you’ll need to go through the conditioning process again.
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Storage
Dehydrated carrots, when properly stored in an airtight container, preferably glass jar, in a climate controlled location will maintain its quality for at least 12 months. Aim to keep yours in a cool, dark location, away from light that can degrade the quality during long term storage.
I personally like to store dehydrated carrots in jars and vacuum seal them in my Avid Armor USV32 chamber vacuum sealer! It works amazing for removing the air from mason jars, giving my dehydrated goods a longer shelf life.
From there, they go into our storage room in the basement, where they are protected from sunlight, heat, and temperature swings.
Converting Fresh To Dried
Dehydrating removes around 95% of the moisture in the carrots so the weight drops drastically, the carrot pieces themselves will also shrink in size.
The conversion from fresh to dried carrots is going to be different for each way you prepare your carrots. I usually find that 1/3 cup dried diced carrots = 1 cup fresh diced carrots, while carrot slices are closer to 1/2 cup dried = 1 cup fresh.
My favorite way to determine the conversion is to fill the top rack of my dehydrator with 4 cups of prepared carrots, and then measure the resulting volume after dehydrating and divide by 4. Then I write the conversion for that batch on a strip of painters tape and stick it to the side of my jar.
Rehydrating Dried Carrots
The steps to rehydrate dried carrots are the same as most dehydrated foods – add an equal amount of dehydrated carrot and water – by volume – and allow to soak.
The dried carrots can be reconstituted using hot water or cold water, hot water will begin cooking the carrots while cool water will take longer to rehydrate. Avoid soaking for longer than 2 hours – it can get a little gross!
If you’re adding dehydrated carrots to soups and stews, just toss them into the boiling pot. The soup will do all the work for you!
You’ll know the carrots are rehydrated when it is nearly the same size as it was before it went into the dehydrator.
To Blanch, Or Not To Blanch?
As mentioned previously, it is not strictly necessary but I highly recommend it. The blanching step adds a couple more minutes to the process but it has many upsides.
Blanching your carrots before dehydrating can stop chemical changes within the carrot associated with spoilage, preserve color, and stop ripening. Although it seems counter intuitive, blanching can help improve dry time as cooking can help to break down fibrous cell walls within the carrots.
Blanched veggies store longer without noticeable deprication in product quality and actually rehydrate faster.
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Blanching Vs Steam Blanching
Whenever possible, I prefer to steam blanch my produce vs boiling water blanch. There are a number of reasons steam blanching is the superior choice:
- more energy efficient and time efficient to boil a small amount of water
- tends to preserve color and flavor better than hot water blanching
- may preserve more nutrients that would otherwise be leached out into the water and lost
You don’t even need a fancy steamer to steam blanch, all you need is a pot with a snug fitting lid and steaming basket. Simply add enough water to cover the bottom of the pot but not above the base of the steamer basket, cover the pot and bring to a boil, then add your diced carrots to the basket, recover, and steam for as long as required before plunging into an ice water bath.
The hardest thing when steam blanching is making sure you don’t run out of water in the bottom of the pot if you’re running multiple batches!
Reducing Drying Time
When it comes to carrots, drying time is crucial. The longer the drying time, the less tender and flavorful the rehydrated carrots become.
It’s important to prepare your carrots in uniform pieces, whether that be slices, rounds, strips, or cubes. One of the easiest ways to do ensure consistency is to use a chopper or food processor. This ensures that most of the pieces are sufficiently dried within the same timeframe.
Leaving space between the pieces on the trays is another way to help reduce drying time. Sounds simple, but it allows airflow around all sides of the carrot, ensuring even drying.
Some hurdles are harder to overcome than consistent knife skills and spreading the bits. High humidity in your home or rainy days can drastically affect the drying time, expect your carrots to take much longer when the humidity is higher.
Limitations
Listen dehydrated foods are wonderful. They’re work up front but they save time and effort on the back end, but they do have limitations!
You won’t be able to rehydrate a carrot stick, dip it in ranch and call it crunchy!
BUT, that doesn’t mean carrots aren’t a valuable food to dehydrate and store. Dehydrated carrots is excellent in cooked dishes that need carrot flavor or a hint of sweetness, like soups, stews, stocks, and sauces. Dehydrated shredded carrots are excellent in carrot cake. Any time you need carrot flavor and not the crunch or structure, you can use dehydrated carrots!
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How To Dehydrate Carrots
Ingredients
- 1 lb carrots fresh
Instructions
Wash + Blanche:
- Place a steam basket in a large heavy-bottomed pot and add water to just below the level of the basket. Cover and place over medium-high heat to bring to a boil.
- Meanwhile, trim the green fronds from the tops of the carrots, and scrub away any soil. For carrots grown in my own garden, I simply clean them well before proceeding. Purchased carrots get peeled before dehydrating here, because I don't know the conditions they were grown in. Avoid soaking your carrots in water as this can cause nutrient leaching.
- Dice, slice, or shred your carrots as desired.
Blanch The Carrots:
- Once the pot reaches a boil, carefully transfer diced or sliced carrots into the steam basket and process for 3-4 minutes, opt for 2 minute blanch if you're working with shredded carrots.
- Meanwhile, prepare a large bowl by filling it with cold water and ice cubes.
- Transfer the blanched carrots from the steam basket into the ice bath. Allow cut carrots to cool completely in the ice bath before straining well and blotting dry with a clean kitchen towel.
Dehydrate:
- Spread prepared carrot pieces on dehydrator trays, it's important to keep it in a single layer, again, to improve drying time, efficiency, and consistency.
- Place the trays in the food dehydrator and dry at 125f for 6-8 hours or until completely dried. To test the carrots for doneness, remove a few pieces, allow them to cool to room temperature, then check out the texture – they should be very hard and brittle.
Store + Condition:
- Once the carrot pieces are completely dried, allow the racks to cool in the dehydrator for 30-45 minutes. This allows the heat to dissipate and reduces the chances of condensation forming in your storage container.
- Once the dried carrot pieces are in storage containers, shake the jar each day or so for a week and observe the container for signs of moisture. If there are no signs of moisture, you're good to go, place them in a cool dark place for long-term storage! If there is evidence of moisture in the container, you must add the celery back to the dehydrator and dry it longer. After they've been dried the second time, you'll need to go through the conditioning process again.
Notes
storage
Dehydrated carrots, properly stored in airtight, preferably glass jars, in a climate controlled location will maintain its quality for at least 12 months. Aim to keep yours in a cool, dark location, away from light that can degrade the quality during long term storage. I personally like to place my dehydrated carrots into jars and vacuum seal them in my Avid Armor USV32 chamber vacuum sealer! It works amazing for removing the air from mason jars, giving my dehydrated goods a longer shelf life.rehydrating dried carrots
The guidelines for rehydrating carrots are the same as most dehydrated foods – add an equal amount of dehydrated carrot and water – by volume – and allow to soak.to blanch, or not to blanch?
Blanching your carrots before dehydrating can stop chemical changes within the carrot associated with spoilage, preserve color, and stop ripening. Although it seems counter intuitive, blanching can help improve dry time as cooking can help to break down fibrous cell walls within the carrots. Blanched veggies store longer without noticeable deprication in product quality and actually rehydrate faster.Recommended Equipment + Ingredients
Nutrition
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