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Why Blanch Vegetables
Before Dehydrating?

Why blanch vegetables before dehydrating?

We do this important step for certain vegetables before dehydrating for a few good reasons:

Why Blanch Vegetables
Before Dehydrating?
Here Are Three Good Reasons

One: It’s important that we deter the food-spoiling process caused by enzymes being present in the vegetables. Blanching helps to stop the enzymatic process, which can cause the food to spoil. Additionally, blanching helps to preserve the flavor, and nutrients of the vegetables. 

Two: It aids in the actual food dehydrating process. I’ll go more into that shortly on this page.

Three: Blanching makes it easier to peel and remove the skin from the vegetables.

Blanching Keeps Vegetable Colors Vibrant

Another reason we blanch vegetables before dehydrating is that blanching helps keep the beautiful color of your vegetables. Your zucchini and broccoli will remain bright green! Your carrots will remain a vivid orange! You get the picture. Blanching also helps retain flavor.

What IS Blanching?

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Blanching simply means dipping foods into small amounts of boiling water for a short period of time. Remember, we're not cooking the food here—so a "short period of time" really only means less than a minute!

Blanching Cracks Skins!

For vegetables that have relatively thick skins (that we want to keep/eat), blanching creates tiny cracks in the skins. These tiny surface cracks help dehydration to occur at a much deeper penetration level that’s more than just surface-skin deep.

Make Sure Vegetables are Dried to the Core...

For proper long-term storage, you must make sure the food you dehydrate has been “dried to the core,” if you will.

Why? You don’t want to end up with moist centers! A moist center will create a breeding ground for mold. And sometimes moist centers are simply NOT visible in large pieces of vegetables with thick skins.

Of course, we can ease that problem by cutting our vegetables into similar-sized strips prior to dehydrating.

After Dehydrating: Use Oxygen Absorbers

50cc Oxygen Absorbers

100cc Oxygen Absorbers

300cc Oxygen Absorbers

2000cc Oxygen Absorbers

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The price you pay doesn't increase.

Make sure to add an oxygen absorber to your dehydrated food packages, prior to vacuum-sealing. Oxygen absorbers do what their name implies: they absorb oxygen. This, in turn, helps inhibit mold growth, which is an essential factor for long-term food storage!

Learn ALL Six Steps For Free!

If you’re just starting out on your food dehydrating journey, make sure you get our free eBook, “Six Simple Steps.” It takes you through the six necessary steps to dehydrate food safely at home.

Look, before the next big thing comes down the pike, like COVID-19—or Ebola, Poxes—and the like. Make sure your food pantry is well-stocked. Avoid those empty sorry-looking shelves at the grocery store.

Susan Gast began Easy Food Dehydrating in December 2010. Read Susan's story of what sparked her interest in all things related to "food dehydrating."

She is featured on Mother Earth News blog, and on Solo Build It (SBI) who host this site. Read her first SBI interview, and her second SBI interview.

Since 1980, Susan's involvement in publishing - in one form or another - led her to create a "review site" of products related to the publishing industry. Visit ePubTechReviews today, also hosted by Solo Build It. Susan also runs her namesake site SusanGast.com on Solo Build It that showcases the books she has written since 2010.

Do you want to send Susan a quick message? Visit her contact page here. She'd love to hear from you!

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