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While fermentation is my favorite preservation method as far as taste goes, I do love dehydrating as well. I love my pickles but I only have so much room in my fridge. I have 1 fridge for regular food, one giant fridge for ferments and produce and I’m on the look out for a third fridge to hold my milk. Keeping 4 growing boys (and me and hubs) full of fresh milk, yogurt, kefir and cheese takes a lot of milk. A lot of milk.
Dehydrating takes less energy than freezing and ferments (unless you have a root cellar that stays at 45-55F), retains much more nutrients than canning, and in my opinion it’s much easier than canning as well and takes up less room. I’ve had my trusty Excalibur running all week preserving squash and green beans. Once the harvest starts to come it, my baby runs most days out of the week.
While most of my dehydrated foods are intended to be used in recipes either rehydrated or not, these beans are great as they are as a tasty snack. I’m hoping to make up a bunch more of these to keep as a snack for car rides.
Dehydrated Spicy Green Beans
- 1 lb of green beans
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 tsp spicy salt mix (I use Slap Ya Mama)
Bring a saucepan full of water to a boil. Add green beans and blanch for about 3 mins.
Remove from stove and plunge beans into cold water to stop them from cooking.
Dry beans off and toss together with olive oil and spicy salt.
Place beans on the drying trays in one layer and set dehydrator to it’s recommended temp. I dehydrated mine at 125F. The lower the temp, the more nutrients and enzymes are preserved.
Store in an airtight jar or baggies. I love using my food saver with mason jar attachment to keep these fresh through the year.
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wonder if this wouldwork for snap peas?
Hmm, I have a big bag of snap peas just asking for me to do this. I’ll let you know how it goes…
Where is the best place to buy Pickl-it Jars?
Straight from the Pickl-it site unless you are lucky enough to have a store near you that carries them. http://www.pickl-it.com
Cool idea! I suppose your beans have to be pretty dang tender to do this? I didn’t know food saver made canning jar lids. I will have to add some of those to my wish list!
Definitely the more tender, the better. Ohterwise they’ll give your jaw a good workout (still tasty though).
What is in the slap yo mama spicy mix? Need a good substitute I can make from spices at home.
It’s simply cayenne, black pepper and salt. My husband buys it even though I tell him I can mix it myself
I didnt blanch the beans first..they are in the excalibur now. Is that ok? Just want for snacks
I’m sure they would be fine without blanching. Blanching is supposed to kill enzymes that might cause the beans to spoil in storage. I actually think they would be fine for storage too as long as they are dried enough. If you eat them right away, they’ll for sure be fine.
The green beans were horrible. Hard as a rock. Threw them out. What did I do wrong? What temp and how long do u do yours?
I was wondering if not blanching them would change the taste. Blanching must softened them. I believe the temp I used was 125F and I did them until they were pliable which was overnight for me.