>>Hi, would you mind explaining what it means to dehydrate vegetables?<<

Sure, I’d be happy to!  Dehydrating vegetables is a method of preserving them by drying.  It’s very simple to do when you have a dehydrator – I bought an electric one a few months ago that I’m very happy with that has been super useful.  It’s also possible to dry vegetables in the sun, using a solar dehydrator or even just putting food on screens when the sun is shining and covering it with muslin cloth.

I’ve found that once you have a dehydrator, it can be a big help in making your food budget go even further. I can take advantage of large amounts of produce that is on sale, since I have a way to preserve it before it goes bad.  Dried vegetables can be used in cooking very easily – they plump back up to regular size with cooking – and they take very little space to store since they shrink substantially when dried.

I put them in glass or plastic food grade containers and keep them on the shelf – they don’t need any refrigeration once they’re dehydrated.  Because we’re a lot of people using one regular sized fridge, this is also very helpful in using our available space efficiently.

Do you need a dehydrator to keep your food budget as low as mine?  No, obviously not, since I just started using one recently!  I don’t point to this as a major strategy that I use to keep food costs low, but rather a way to extend your food budget dollars, by being able to buy more at a low price and making it last for longer, so that you don’t have to pay full price when you run out of sale vegetables.

Avivah