Strawberry Fruit Leather In A Food Dehydrator

Strawberries are one of the easiest fruits to eat. There is no skin to remove, you can wash it easily, it’s healthy, it can help you lose weight, and they’re absolutely delicious. The only downside is, that sometimes they can be a bit expensive. I was in the supermarket the other day, and a package of strawberries was about $5.00. With something that your entire family can eat in a day or two, it can get rather pricey if you’re buying 2-3 packages of strawberries every week. If you want to keep strawberries part of your healthy diet, then you’re going to have to buy in bulk when they are on sale. The question then becomes, how do you preserve the strawberries if you buy in bulk? The answer to preserving fruit, as its been for centuries, is to utilize a food dehydrator. Prepare your palate for great tasting fruit leather.

Yes, while strawberry fruit leather doesn’t sound appetizing, don’t let the name stop you. Think of fruit leather as a healthy, natural, tasty alternative to the unhealthy, sugar ridden Fruit Roll Up, that you probably see in your supermarket candy aisle (ah! I think I’m having a sugar rush just thinking about eating Fruit Roll-Ups…YUK!) Calling Fruit-Roll-Up’s “Fruit” is a bit of a stretch, and I was actually very pleasantly surprised the first time I had real, natural fruit leather – Once again, mother nature has helped create something much more nutritious than the scientists behind Fruit Roll Ups.

Making Strawberry Fruit Leather In A Food Dehydrator

Just like most things in a food dehydrator, making strawberry fruit leather is easy to make, is healthy, and tastes great.

1. Prepare the drying surface. You’ll want to pick up parchment paper or a baking sheet at the supermarket before you get started. Fruit leather can be sticky, and you don’t want to get your fruit leather stuck to your food dehydrator drying racks.
2. Wash and cut off the stems of the strawberries.
3. For every 4 cups of strawberries, add 1/2 cup of water to the mix for texture.
4. Puree or blend the strawberries. You can use a standard size strawberry box.
5. A good rule of thumb is to use 1 cup of puree per drying rack in your dehydrator. You want to keep it nice and thin!
6. Drying times and temperatures will differ from machine to machine, so check what your manufacturer recommends. I’ve found that 5-10 hours will be okay. The standard is to use the dryer until the fruit no longer sticks to the drying sheet.
7. Cut the fruit leather into strips for easy snacking, and store in tupperware or plastic wrap.

As with all things in a food dehydrator – the art is to get creative! I’ve added some plain yogurt to my puree in the past instead of water, some sugar to make it a bit sweeter, and you should get creative too!

Let us know below in the comments if you have any ideas on how to improve on the standard recipe to make strawberry fruit leather in a food dehydrator.

All the best, and I hope you continue to use your fruit dehydrator to come up with fantastic recipes.

Here’s to healthy eating!