Fruitalicious Dried Snacks

Happy Wednesday, peeps! If you were hanging out with me Monday, you might have picked up on the fact that I’m kind of a fiend for saving cash. I’m a DIY-er driven by an obsession with not paying for anything I might be able to do on my own. Or possibly trade pizza and a 6-pack for.

So sticking with that theme – let’s talk about fruit! Dried fruit, that is...

C'mon, don't act like you haven't seen this in your crisper.

In my 2-person household, we have the bad habit of buying fruit and then forgetting about it in the mysterious depths of the crisper drawer until it sprouts a carpet and/or terrible smell. Out of sight, out of mind, you know. We WANT to eat healthy, but in our busy lives snacks that come pre-packaged and non-sticky tend to be the first thing we grab. Anyone who's ever tried to eat a plum on the drive to work knows exactly what I mean. And has a sticky steering wheel.

After we threw away another package of spoiled apple slices, my wonderfully brilliant husband decided that we should try our hand at drying it and making fruit snacks and trail mixes. If you buy trail mix or dried fruit for your family, you know how pricey it can be in the store for the natural products, and the cheaper ones end up being mostly sugar and preservatives.

So yes, what I’m saying is this is totally a win-win.

Being the thorough engineer that he is, he did the research on what kind of dehydrator would be the best for us and we settled on this one for us based on the size, ratings, temperature settings and price. There are so many options out there and you can spend anywhere from $20 - $200 on a dehydrator, but even some of the higher end ones had terrible reviews. 

Lesson: Unless you like throwing money away for fun, do the research!

After lots of trial and error and some rather interesting experiments, we discovered that our favorites are thinly sliced dried pineapple chips, cantaloupe/honeydew, cinnamon apple slices and watermelon chips.

That’s right... Dried WATERmelon. Counter-intuitive, isn’t it? But O....M....G.... Dried watermelon ultimately tastes like watermelon candy and has a taffy-like texture that will become your favorite sweet snack. And getting healthy snacks in the house that your family WANTS to eat (and quite possibly fights over) is its own reward!

Left to right: Dried Watermelon, zucchini chips, fig slices, sliced/seasoned tomatoes,
honeydew, trail mix, and cinnamon apple slices. One giant pile of YUM.

The snackalicious possibilities are endless with a dehydrator and there are resources a-plenty on the web to give you great ideas to try. Here’s a few to get you started:

Fruit leather guide: These are basically homemade fruit roll-ups with any fruits you choose. It’s the perfect solution for those overripe fruits you don’t want to just throw away. Not to mention delish!

Kale Chips: My favorite is garlic and cashew

36 Foolproof Recipes: This’ll get you started, and then some!

Now that your mouth is watering and your pocketbook is ready for a refill, go salvage your fruit drawer!