You all must have heard that dried fruits are great for health and are also very tasty snacks that can be eaten anywhere, anytime. But did you know that it is not necessary to buy dried fruits from grocery or other stores as they can be prepared at home as well? By following certain effective tips to dry fruits at home, you can get a jar full of these yummy delights which notch up your nutritional value for the day. The following are the 5 steps and ways to dry fruits at home:
1. Wash Fruits and cut them
The first step to take to dry fruits at home is to wash fruits properly and cut them into very thin slices. For this, you can first select the fruits that you wish to convert into dried ones. The slices you cut must not be too small in size but also they must not remain thick after cutting.
2. Lay Down Fruits on a Parchment
The next step in this process is to take all the cut slices of the fruits one by one and lay them down on a parchment covered cooking sheet. Do this carefully and in such a way that the slices do not touch each other. They must be at a slight distance from one another.
3. Place in Oven
Now that you have cut slices, neatly arranged on a tray covered with a cooking sheet, you are ready to place this tray in an oven. For this, you will need to turn the oven on and set it on very low heat about 150-200 degree Fahrenheit. We choose this low temperature setting because we only wish to dry out the moisture from the fruit and not cook it. This process can take a few hours but do not increase the temperature for faster results.
4. Remove from Oven
When you feel that the fruit is sufficiently dehydrated and all its water is dried out, you can switch off the oven and take the tray out. Check that the fruit is not squishy but is chewy. It should also not be crunchy.
5. Leave in the Open
The fruits that you obtain from the oven may be warm right now and may still have a little moisture left. In such a case, do not put them back into the oven but leave them in the open for a while.
