D is for Dehydrating Bananas
What do you do when you buy a whole bunch of bananas on sale?
Dehydrate them, of course!
We’ve spent some time teaching the girls about hydration. They know they have to drink water to stay hydrated and healthy. They know the body is made of water and we lose water in various ways, so we need to drink water to keep it hydrated. What they don’t know so much about is is dehydration.
Making dehydrated bananas is extremely easy.
Just slice them.
Layer them on the dehydrator trays in a single layer with a bit of space between them.
Put the cover on the dehydrator, plug it in and wait. Wait. WAIT!
The longer you leave the bananas on, the crispier they get. I prefer crispy banana chips over the chewy variety, so I’m still experimenting on thickness to cut them as well as dehydrating time. We dehydrated these bananas for about a day and a half, and they were slightly chewy. Enough that it stuck in my teeth when I ate them.
The girls are still fairly young, so we didn’t want to go into too much detail on the process. Just enough to give them a taste of what dehydrating means. Here’s a few facts we shared with them, then allowed them to ask questions to help further their understanding.
- Dehydration is a method of food preservation.
- Food preservation means it helps the food last longer. For example if we leave bananas out on the counter they will eventually go bad, but we can leave dehydrated bananas out and they would be fine.
- Dehydration means to take the water out.
- Bacteria, fungus and other living things need the water to live, so if you remove the water from food, they can’t live in the food. This is what keeps the food from going bad.
- A raisin is a dehydrated grape. (This is a great place to show them each and let them ask questions.)
- Dehydrated food makes a good, healthy snack.
- Since we need water to live we need to make sure we keep adding water to our bodies to replace the water we lose so we don’t dehydrate. We do this by drinking water.
- What other foods can you think of that we can dehydrate?
Do you like to eat your dehydrated bananas as banana chips or mixed in a recipe?
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10 Comments
Jen
I love banana chips! I may have to look into getting a dehydrator. It would so nice to do this at home.
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Mary
Yes! I love our dehydrator! Just bought some spice jars to add dried herbs this year. Can’t wait!
Sarah Day
I haven’t tried this but will now. I like the fact that they can “travel” – thanks for posting!
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Mary
Yes! We’re always looking for healthy travel snacks and bananas always seems to ripen fast in the car, get warm and nasty. Dehydrated chips make them so much easier to eat, lol
Rama
Super!
Cristina
I need a dehydrator, no?!?!?! I love banana chips – and coconut flakes!
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Mary
I can do without the coconut flakes, lol. Although they do make a great filler for my almond flour cupcakes!
Shawn Yankey
I love dehydrated bananas. Great share. I gotta try it now.
Shawn from Laughing at Life 2
Mary
They are fantastic, great flavor too! Just remember if you don’t like the browning (which I don’t mind) dunk them in some lemon juice or ascorbic acid (you can pick it up in the canning section of stores). Thanks for stopping by 🙂
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