Dehydrated Bananas | How-to Store and How Long Do They Last
My dehydrated bananas!
Dehydrating your own food (such as the banana) is a great way to save money AND to build up your own food storage. Fresh bananas can go bad fairly quickly. But dehydrated bananas will last a long time (if you don’t eat them all first) and make a great treat. Also yummy in cereal & milk.
By taking advantage of food when it’s on SALE, you will also save money!
By preserving your food in season will enable you to eat the same during the winter!
For example, we recently purchased a large quantity of bananas while they were on sale for a very low price. We dehydrated them because they make a great snack (dehydrated banana chips) and they taste good in cereal.
Once they are dehydrated and stored in canning jars (more about that in a minute), their shelf life will be at least 1-year without issue. More or less…
How To Make Dehydrated Bananas
The recipe is simple.
Slice the banana into thin 1/8 inch slices, about the thickness of two quarters. Use a thin sharp knife or you can speed the process with a banana slicer.
Chef’n Bananza Slicer
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Treat Bananas To Prevent Discoloring
Pretreating the banana slices with a citric acid solution or lemon juice solution helps to keep them light-colored, and serves as an antimicrobial treatment.
To make a citric acid solution, mix 1 teaspoon of citric acid into 1 quart of cold water. OR, use a lemon juice solution which is made by mixing equal parts of lemon juice and cold water.
To pretreat the bananas, soak the slices in a bowl with the solution for ten minutes. Remove and set aside to drain before filling dehydrator trays.
Set Dehydrator Temperature to 135 Degrees-F
Then place the slices on your dehydrator trays and set the temperature to 130 – 135 degrees-F.
Dehydrate Until Leathery
Dehydrate until leathery. Thicker slices will take longer. Sample them as you near the end of the dehydrating process.
The actual time to dehydrate depends on how moist the food is, the thickness of the pieces, the humidity in the air around you, and the temperature setting of the dehydrator.
For banana slices, I found that it takes between 6 – 10 hours with our Excalibur food dehydrator depending on the conditions mentioned.
How To Store Dehydrated Bananas
We like to store many of our dehydrated foods in canning jars. The lid keeps the air out, and the glass is perfect for quickly identifying what’s inside, and providing impervious seal.
You don’t need to do this, but it will help a lot! We’ve been doing this for years. Use a jar sealer attachment to your vacuum seal machine. It will suck the air out of the jars.
You just need to have a vacuum sealer machine with the external hose port.
Jar Sealer Accessory Kit
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Anybody have tips for keeping fruit from sticking to the trays? I have had a tough time when dehydrating fruit (mostly strawberries and bananas) with them sticking.
I use plastic window screen cut to fit my trays. The food when dry can be peeled off.
To prevent food from sticking, use parchment paper to line trays.
Would that make it harder for them to dry???
Vicky
I shall answer your question regarding banana’s.
Parchment paper or the sheets that one can buy for their machines keeps the fruit from sticking to the paper. They may be a little sticky from the sugars the fruit contains, but they release rather easily from those two different forms of sheeting.
I go through and flip mine part way through the process to make sure that they dry properly and to prevent sticking on the paper. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask.
Light spray such as Pam would work, however I did mine in an air fryer with no problem of sticking.
Good Luck!
Parchment paper
Parchment paper has worked for me
To keep bananas and strawberries from sticking so bad I use the small mesh insert and when they are fully dried you can pick it up and fold it and it really makes sticky fruits pop off easier.
I do a quick spray with canola or olive oil. Works and I get no aftertaste
I agree. Also, I’ve found that the trays of the Excalibur are pretty well non-stick as is for most things.
Dehydrating tomatoes can be sticky, but a trick is to cut them in small wedges and place them on the trays with skin-side-down (wedge pointing up)… no stick!
You can also line the trays with wax or parchment paper. A little more time consuming, but it works. Homemade banana chips are sooo much better than store bought.
Pineapple is the best… Keeps a fairly long time, taste amazing! (Keeps all the sweetness) and is extremely High in Vitamin C, so a good item to have around and eat a few here and there. It is prepper candy!
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ve not tried pineapple yet… but it sounds good.
will they get crispy cause I have had them in the dryer for 11 hours ?
They will be drier and thus harder but not “crispy”. Crispy banana chips are baked with oil.
I like to use coconut oil to coat the racks of my dehydrator; it works and is healthy and complements the flavor of fruit well.
If more than an eighth thick it can take up or over 15 hours.
I bake my banana slices for 16 hours and they do come out crisp. I use a Nasco 75 pro dehydrator and use the hand held banana slicer to keep the slices the same thickness.
Try putting the racks in the freezer for awhile and then they pop off! We usually leave them overnight, but just long enough for them to cool off the rack is enough!
I tried to dehydrate bananas. but problem is banana gets sticked to plastic mesh of racks. They were so sticky I had to use scrapper to remove them from mesh. please suggest some solution ?
nauman
After you slice the bananas place a few at a time into water with lemon juice. Use a slotted plastic spoon to help drain the water mixture off the fruit before you start to lay it on your dryer sheets. Lemon juice mixture helps with the browning, also the stickiness of the banana.
Use non metal utensils which also helps with the browning of the fruit.
Half way through the drying process use a spatula or roll up the edges of the drying sheets to loosen the fruit then turn it over one piece at a time. Start the drying process again. The fruit will be a dry on the top and sticky on the bottom.
Finish processing the bananas. If you still have questions I will keep checking the site on and off.
Mine never would get tuff but leathery. When I put them in a jar they want to stick to each other . Is that normall?
Yes, sort of… The leathery texture may cause them to cling to each other. With that said, the drier they are (the longer they’ve been dehydrated), the less leathery and the more brittle they become.