How to Dehydrate Peppers with A Dehydrator

Dehydrators are a fairly common appliance that can be found on most homesteads. While there are many ways to preserve food, dehydrators are probably one of the most hands-off methods. There is no sitting by a stove or measuring involved, such as with more intense techniques of preserving, like canning. The bulk of your work is done upfront.

We had more peppers this year then we knew what to do with. We sold some, ate some, and decided to dehydrate the rest to make seasonings.

How does a dehydrator work?

Dehydrators work by circulating air at a low temperature for an extended period of time based on the moisture continent of your fruit or vegetable (usually between 50% – 95% depending on the food). The heat of the dehydrator draws out moisture using low temperatures and longer cooking times.

Why should you dehydrate your food?

Dehydrating is not only a versatile way to preserve your harvest but, by removing moisture, you are preserving the nutrients and flavors of your produce.

By removing moisture, you are also preventing various bacteria from growing and spoiling your food. This is why it is especially important to make sure that you are using long enough dehydrating times.

What does a dehydrator cost and where can I get one?

To be clear, you don’t have to buy a dehydrator in order to preserve your harvest. Many people simply use their ovens. However, we use our oven a lot and it simply wasn’t practical for me to reserve it primarily for dehydrating for 5-15 hours at a time. Additionally, it takes less energy to run a dehydrator then it does an oven.

Popular models can be found on Amazon, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Best Buy, Lowes, and even Target. The typical cost ranges anywhere from $40 to $200.

I found ours on Amazon by looking through the warehouse deals last year. It’s a Chefman that I bought for approximately $75. It is not even close to being the same quality as, say, an Excalibur but it has served us well these last two seasons.

Dehydrating Pepper Steps

As with most things, the first thing you are going to do before you dehydrate your peppers is to wash them off to make sure that they are clean and aren’t harboring any unwanted pests. You will want to compost any that have dark spots that look like rot or are soft. After washing, you can let air dry or pat dry with a towel.

Many people will go ahead and dehydrate peppers whole. This works just as well but, ultimately, it will take longer as you will have more surface area to deal with. I find it easier to cut each pepper in half and cut each half into two pieces. The smaller portions lessens the amount of time that they spend in the dehydrator.

While this batch was sweet peppers, I learned the hard way a few years ago that, when handling hot peppers, gloves are absolutely necessary. There is absolutely nothing quite like the burn of getting chile pepper oil on your hands. Without protection, it is almost impossible to get the burning to go away quickly. It is better to play it safe! When in doubt, go ahead and put some gloves on.

After cutting, place the peppers on the trays, making sure that they don’t overlap to ensure proper air flow.

Load the trays up and turn your dehydrator on to, minimum, 135 degrees Fahrenheit. I used 140 degrees Fahrenheit for these and set the timer for 12 hours. I like to observe how they are doing so I will usually start it during the morning, but it is fairly common to set it and leave it overnight.

I forgot gloves – now what?

I’ve been there – the first time I dehydrated peppers with a friend we didn’t even think to put on gloves! Needless to say, the oils got on our hands, faces, and anything we dared to touch. This led to several frantic google searches and some tears.

A quick fix is to either use rubbing alcohol on your hands or to soak them in milk. Rubbing alcohol can help the capsaicin, or what makes peppers hot, break down while milk contains casein that fights the effects of capsaicin. In our desperation we tried soap (doesn’t work) and vinegar (also a waste of time).

How to Use

After dehydrating, you can store the dried pepper pieces in an airtight container or grind it down to use as seasoning. I like to combine our pepper seasoning with salt to give it a little extra flavor.