Ten Bucks
It was a bet I was willing to take for the prospect of fruit roll-ups, freshly dried garden herbs, and salty sweet almonds. My garage sale purchase was nothing fancy, but it saved me a lot of money, and what’s not to love about THAT??
I wore out the motor on that little dehydrator in less than a year, so I started shopping for a better one. This month I’m giving away the one I chose for myself, only better!
The Excalibur Stainless Steel 5-Tray is incredibly durable – it comes with a 10 year warranty – and it has a few features that I absolutely love:
- The 26 hour timer allows you to leave the house while your dehydrator finishes up a batch of goodies – no need to rush home to turn it off. (Also, even if you’re home it’s just one less thing to have to keep track of during the day)
- Unlike my older version which has plastic trays that I line with parchment paper, this one comes with stainless steel trays
- More inexpensive models often only have one temperature setting, but this one has an adjustable thermostat that ranges from 95F to 155F
Wondering how I save money with my Excalibur? Here are a few ideas:
How To Save Money With A Dehydrator
One of the best ways to maximize great deals on produce is to stock up and preserve them for later. Summer tomatoes are dried for a zesty addition to Italian dishes later and fruits such as apples can be dried with cinnamon for a kid-friendly treat. You can also dry herbs you grow for use in the winter, make beef jerky, yogurt, dry coconut flour, and make your own soaked and dehydrated nuts/beans/grains.
Dehydrated Recipe Suggestions
If you’re looking for some recipe ideas to use with dehydrator, here’s some of my favorites:
- How to make cultured apricot fruit leather
- How to soak and dehydrate nuts for optimal nutrition
- How To Dehydrate Fruit: Apples, Bananas, Strawberries, Cherries . . .
- How to make beef jerky in a dehydrator
- How to make yogurt in a dehydrator
- How to make pumpkin spice granola
- How to make zesty oven dried tomatoes
- How to make garlic and onion powder (for half of what you’d pay at the store)
- How to dry herbs like basil, sage, thyme, dill oregano, rosemary, marjoram, lemon balm and mint
- How to make raw vanilla coconut macaroons
- How to make raw lemon coconut macaroons
Ever use a dehydrator? What is your favorite food to dehydrate? Please share below in the comments!