With the world cup kicking off, its inevitable you’ll have family and friends over watching the match. But, you don’t always have to go down the unhealthy route. If you own a dehydrator, you can create so many healthy snacks to accompany your lifestyle and you never know, you might just convert your family and friends to dehydrating.
Apple Fruit Leather
These fruit leathers are a great chewy snack to add some sweetness to your snack table. You can even dip these in peanut butter for the perfect combo of sweet and savoury.
Recipe
- 4 apples peeled and chopped
- 300 ml water
- 2 tablespoons caster sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
How To
- Peel, decore and chop apples
- Place them in a saucepan
- Add 300 ml water and bring to a simmer for around 10 minutes or until apples are soft
- Reduce the heat
- Add sugar and cinnamon
- Use a potato masher and mix everything until it resembles baby food
- Cook for a further 3 minutes on a low heat, stirring occasionally
- Put mixture into a blender
- Add vanilla essence
- Blend until smooth
- Pour onto a paraflex sheet making sure it's no thicker than 5 mm
- Depending on your dehydrator you can add a number of paraflex sheets and stack them on the trays.
- Set your dehydrator to low and bake at 60°C for 9 hours or until tacky.
Spicy Sun-dried Tomatoes
If you like to add a bit of spice to your snacks, then these chewy sun-dried tomatoes will give you a bit of a kick! We’ve also included a chilli powder recipe if you want even more delicious flavour.
- 8 small cherry tomatoes or however many tomatoes you want
Chilli Powder Recipe
- 3 tablespoons sweet paprika
- 1 and a half tablespoon garlic powder
- 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
- 1 tablespoon onion powder
- 1 tablespoon dried oregano
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
How To
- Cut your tomatoes in half and place in a bowl
- Mix all the powders together
- Sprinkle your chilli powder over the top until all tomatoes are covered
- Stir well
- Place the tomatoes, cut side up, directly onto the paraflex sheets
- Set dehydrator temperature to about 135°C.
- These tomatoes will take 10- 12 hours to dehydrate
- After 4 hours, turn the tomatoes over and gently press flat with a spatula.
- After 2 hours, turn the tomatoes again and flatten
- Continue drying until done
Carrot, Banana and Apple Chips
These chips are great snacks for kids, who don’t particularly enjoy eating fruit or vegetables, as they taste just like sweets. Plus, you can store these chips in an airtight container for up to two weeks, which means you can cook a big batch and enjoy these delicious chips all week long.
This recipe is broken up into three parts as each main ingredient has a slightly different recipe.
Banana Chip Recipe
- 2 bananas
- 4 Tbsp of lemon juice
- 1 Tsp of granulated sugar
How To
- Cut your bananas into 5 mm slices and place into a bowl
- Cover with lemon juice
- Add the sugar
- Stir everything together
- Place onto a dehydrator tray
Apple Chip Recipe
- 2 apples
- 1 Tbsp honey
- ½ tsp cinnamon
How To
- De-core the apples
- Cut your apples into 5 mm slices
- Put apples into a bowl
- Add honey and cinnamon
- Stir until all apple slices are covered
- Place on a dehydrator tray
Carrot Chip Recipe
- 2 carrots
- 1 tbsp coconut oil
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp paprika
How To
- Cut your carrots into 5 mm slices and place in a bowl
- Add the coconut oil, salt, paprika and cumin
- Stir until carrots are completely covered
- Place on a dehydrator tray
- Once you have placed the carrots, apples and bananas on your dehydrator tray
- Set your dehydrator to 100°C and bake for 10 hours
- Turn your ingredients every 2 hours until cooked
- Take out of the dehydrator and mix the banana, apple and carrot chips together, this will give you the best flavour.