Skip to main content

Dehydrating Potatoes

Sometimes, you run across a deal that you just can't pass up:

Box of potatoes; dehydrated potatoes.
If potatoes go on sale, stock up and dehydrate them.

We were grocery shopping one Sunday, and needed to pick up potatoes, which are normally around $2.50 for a 10 pound bag...but then I spied this 25 pound box of potatoes for $2.99, reduced for quick sale.  I'm not sure why they needed to sell them quickly, but we snatched them up!

And then we had 25 pounds of potatoes.  That's a lot of taters.



So, we've made lots of Homemade Potato Chips, Pizza Twice Baked Potatoes, mashed potatoes, pan fried potatoes, baked potatoes...but we still have a lot left!

If you have so many potatoes that you don't know what to do with them, dehydrate them before they start growing eyes.  I dehydrated a lot of ours, making potato slices (for scalloped potatoes) and potato granules (for instant mashed potatoes).

Dehydrated Potato Slices


1.  Peel and rinse the potatoes.
  • The amount of potatoes you use will depend on how many trays you have for your dehydrator or how many cookie sheets can fit in your oven.  I found that my Nesco dehydrator could fit approximately one potato per tray.
2.  Thinly slice the potatoes.
  • Potatoes should be cut into 1/8" slices.  A mandolin or food processor makes this task much easier.
3.  Blanch the potato slices for 5 minutes.
  •  Bring a pot of plain water to a boil.  Place your potato slices in a blanching basket (if you don't have a basket, you'll have to just drop the slices into the pot and remove with a slotted spoon).  Drop the basket of slices into the boiling water.  Wait for the reboil, and then begin timing the five minutes.
Blanching potatotes for dehydrating.
Blanch potatoes before dehydrating.


4.  Place blanched potatoes in ice water.
  • Once the five minutes is up, remove the basket of slices and immediately drop them into a sink-full of ice water.  Allow the slices to completely cool.
5.  Remove slices and drain.
  • Place the slices in a colander and allow to drain.
6.  Dehydrate the potato slices.
  • Once the slices are mostly dry, arrange them on your dehydrator tray (or cookie sheet if using the oven).  Set your dehydrator for 130 degrees F and let it rip!  My potatoes were in the dehydrator overnight, and by morning, they were done.  The slices will be stiff and slightly translucent.

Potatoes ready to be dehydrated.
Blanched potatoes in the dehydrator.
  • If you are going to be using an oven, lightly grease cookie sheets, and arrange the slices onto the sheets.  Turn your oven to its lowest temperature, and place the cookie sheets inside.  Dehydration time will vary.  It is a wise idea to check the slices every half hour or so, and turn the slices several times during the drying time.  The slices are done when they are stiff and slightly translucent.
7.  Cool and store.
  • Allow the slices to cool, and store in an airtight container.  Jars work well for storage, but you can also use plastic containers or Ziploc bags.  Store the slices in a cool, dark place.


Dehydrated Potato Granules


1.  Peel and rinse the potatoes.
  • The amount of potatoes required will depend on how many trays you are going to be using.  If you are using a dehydrator, I found that about 4 potatoes per fruit leather tray worked well.  
2.  Quarter and boil the potatoes.
  • Cut each potato into 4 pieces and place the pieces in a pot.  Add water to just cover the potatoes, and bring to a boil.  Cover the pot, reduce heat to low, and allow the potatoes to simmer until tender--approximately 20 minutes.
3.  Drain potatoes.
  • Once the potatoes are tender, drain in a colander and allow them to dry somewhat.
4.  Mash the potatoes.
  • Return the potatoes to the pot, and mash them well.  Do not add anything to them--we are mashing only plain potatoes.  Mash the potatoes until they are smooth and lump-free.

Potatoes being mashed.
Mash cooked potatoes to make dehydrated potato granules.

5.  Dehydrate the potatoes.
  • If you are using a food dehydrator, spread the mashed potatoes in a fruit leather tray.  Dehydrate at 130 degrees F until dry (I did mine overnight, and they were done by morning).
  • If you are drying in an oven, lightly grease a jellyroll pan, and spread the mashed potatoes in the pan.  Be careful you don't layer it in too thickly, or it will take forever to dry out--try not to go thicker than 1/4".  Put your oven on its lowest temperature, and leave the potatoes to dehydrate until they are dry all the way through.  They are dehydrated when you can bend the potatoes and a piece snaps off. 

A thin layer of mashed potatoes spread in a dehydrator tray.
Spread the mashed potatoes in a thin layer.  Lightly grease the tray for easier removal.

6.  Grind the dried potatoes.
  • Remove the dried potatoes from the fruit leather tray or jellyroll pan and break the sheet of potatoes into chunks.  Place a few chunks at a time in your blender, and pulse, breaking up the chunks into small granules.  It is important that your potatoes are dried out all the way, because if they are not, they wont break apart like they should in the blender (and there is danger of spoilage during storage).
7.  Store the granules.
  • Once you have blended all your potato chunks into granules, you can store them.  Glass jars work well for this, but you can also use plastic containers or Ziploc bags.  Store the granules in a cool, dark place.
8.  To rehydrate the potatoes:
  •   For 4 Servings:

    Bring 1 cup water or milk (or a combination of the two), 1 tablespoon butter, and 1/2 teaspoon salt to a boil. Add 1/2 cup potato granules, stir, cover, and remove from heat. Allow to sit for 5 minutes, or until the granules have softened. Whip the potatoes with a fork, whisk, or beaters, adding additional milk and butter if desired.

    For thicker potatoes, decrease liquids, for thinner, increase liquids.

    Of course, you can also just rehydrate the potatoes with boiling water and skip the salt, milk, and butter if you'd like them plain.

Dehydrated potatoes are great for camping and those who travel a lot.  They are also nice to have around as an "emergency" food, in the case of natural disaster or other emergency.  Dehydrated potatoes are also a handy "convenience" food to have around for when you need to throw together a quick, fuss-free dinner.

Keep an eye out for future posts including recipes to use your dehydrated potato stash:

Potato and Cheese Crusted Perch

Comments

  1. I'm the founder/moderator for Punk Domestics (www.punkdomestics.com), a community site for those of use obsessed with, er, interested in DIY food. It's sort of like Tastespotting, but specific to the niche. I'd love for you to submit this to the site. Good stuff!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you!~ thank you~ thank you~I dehydrate a lot of food and usually do the thin sliced method. I was looking for a method where I could mash, then dehydrate. I just recently acquired 40#'s of potatoes~~that's a lot of taters to process! I am a low scale prepper and now that I have this information..it is on!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Glad I could help! :) If you feel so inclined, come back and let me know how it went.

      Delete
  3. How do you rehydrate the mashed potatoes? I've never bought instant, so I'm kind of at a loss

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Lampie! Well, I'm a dork. Why didn't I include instructions for this in the post?! :) I'll explain how to rehydrate here, and then edit the post to include the instructions as well.

      For 4 Servings:

      Bring 1 cup water or milk (or a combination of the two), 1 tablespoon butter, and 1/2 teaspoon salt to a boil. Add 1/2 cup potato granules, stir, cover, and remove from heat. Allow to sit for 5 minutes, or until the granules have softened. Whip the potatoes with a fork, whisk, or beaters, adding additional milk and butter if desired.

      For thicker potatoes, decrease liquids, for thinner, increase liquids.

      Of course, you can also just rehydrate the potatoes with boiling water and skip the salt, milk, and butter if you'd like them plain.

      Delete
  4. I use this same method for sweet potatoes too. I add some cinnamon and nutmeg with a little bit of honey.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ya Hooooo It worked, Thank You, I had been told that it could not be done. Next we'er going to dehydrate our winter squash. I'am a canner, from meat to taters and now we are dehydrating also. Again Thank You, I new that if you could do sweet potatoes then why not white? Have a good day.

    ReplyDelete
  6. How long can you store these. Am interested in long term storage for possible disaster relief supplies.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous, if you vacuum seal with an oxygen eliminator up to 8 years if they are fully dehydrated.

      Delete
  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I have a bag of those little red, purple and yellow potatoes. I think they are referred to as "potatoe medley". How do you dehydrate those? Help... :-).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I would dry them just like regular potatoes personally.

      Delete
  9. I generally make my mashed potatoes with the skins still on (to get as much of the nutrients as possible) - do you think following all the instructions above, but not peeling the potatoes will have a negative impact on the dehydrating process?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have never tried this, but it sounds like a really great idea! The skins do have so many nutrients in them, it's a shame to waste them. I'd think that it would work okay, but I'd have to do some experimenting first to see. If you try it, please let me know how it works out for you! :)

      Delete
    2. I dehydrate my fresh picked potatoes with their thin skins, and they come out excellent. With older potatoes, I think I would scrub the peels with a stainless steel scrub pad to reduce the peel's thickness first. But that is just my preference of thin skinned potatoes.

      Delete
  10. Oh my, I think I'm going to have to try this. What an awesome Christmas gift! And, putting them into a quart jar, with the recipe printed and stuck on the jar, would be a great idea, as well. Wish I had a dehydrator. I'll be using that oven tomorrow

    ReplyDelete
  11. If i do the potato granules can i use that to make potato soup?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There is a recipe here: http://www.cooks.com/recipe/lg2bq55o/instant-potato-soup.html If you search online for potato granule soup, you'll come up with more as well.

      Delete
  12. Having read this info I am going dehydrate all my potatoes from now on. About to go camping this will save me heaps. thank you so much for all this info on this subject. This will save money due to no more rotten potatoes from the bag. I had looked on potato granules and the person that was talking was having frozen potatoes from a bag and was saying she had got this bag from Costo but been on a limit income in Australia . But now checking out your site it has given me hope to save money on potatoes. Thank you so much.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Hi if you wanted to add flavor to them outside of just butter like say garlic and herb, or something like that, when would you add that stuff? and any recommendations on how much to use?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is a great idea and something I'll have to experiment with. I'll let you know if I find anything out!

      Delete
  14. How long do these potatoes keep if they are stored in canning jars?? TIA!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have had some in storage for a few years now, and they are still holding up fine.

      Delete
  15. Thank you so much for sharing this, I am having ploblems eating at the moment and potatoes are one of main foods. Can't wait to give this a go so I can have some preseritive free home made instant mash :)

    ReplyDelete
  16. AWESOME!
    Love this idea!
    gives me an excuse to buy a dehydrator(not that I really needed 1 to begin with...)

    In reference to the tater skins, the worst that can happen is that it would take a wee bit longer(following this recipe of course).
    Think about it, when you bake potatoes in the oven, who takes off the skin before hand? The skins get baked along with the rest of the tater....and the same hold true when dehydrating them....or dehydrating any food that you normally would not peel.

    This has so many different applications for so many different foods....fruits & veggies are the first to come to mind....
    TY again Madam!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Dehydrated food is incredibly helpful for hikers and campers because the weight, most of them need to carry in their backpacks, are often considerably reduced by merely carrying dry food. http://survival-mastery.com/diy/food_preserv/how-to-dehydrate-food.html

    ReplyDelete
  18. Dehydrated spuds (flakes) also make a great gravy or soup thickener. They dissolve almost instantly. Add, a few teaspoons at a time, until you get the consistency you're looking for

    ReplyDelete
  19. Thank you a million for your post of how to dehydrate potatoes! I use my potato granule in my kieshe. It was a thickener.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Superb post, you have indicated out some excellent factors, I too believe this kind of is a very excellent website. Would like to see some other posts on the same subject!

    ReplyDelete
  21. Thank you for the great articles. You did a great job putting them together.
    Vacuum Dehydration Australia

    ReplyDelete
  22. Oh I love dehydrated food, especially froots! I found a few great recipes in this article: http://hikingmastery.com/skills/dehydrated-food-recipes.html

    ReplyDelete
  23. I was not necessarily interested in French Fried Potatoes for the sake of French Fries alone but rather as a dehydrated potatoes that could be easily reconstituted as necessary, however since we did created the French style potatoes I might as well consider using it as such. My original goal was to dehydrate potatoes for later use in the event of hard times ahead. These dehydrated "Spuds" could be used for a variety of uses ranging from mashed potatoes to fried or even Au Gratin Potatoes casserole. Dehydrating your potatoes in times of plenty can result in an economical method of stretching your food dollar while still providing variety in your diethttp://bowhuntingus.beep.com/blog-1.htm

    ReplyDelete
  24. Nice idea!
    I love dehydrated food, but I've never tried to dehydrate potatoes. But I like the idea very much. That's one of the first things I do with my new dehydrator for sure. By the way, my new dehydrator isn't a classic dehydrator like the one above, it's a dehydrator with a horizontal drying system. This system guarantees a more even drying than a vertical drying system. It also has stainless steel drying tray and the casing in totally BPA free: https://www.vitality4life.com/biochef-arizona-sol-9-tray-food-dehydrator/

    ReplyDelete
  25. For those of us who are game hunters, particularly for those who prefer a bow as their main weapon of choice, the notion of Spring turkey hunting is an exhilarating time of the year. Hunting wild turkeys using a bow takes skill and endurance. This is most likely why most hunters do not embark on this tricky journey. Click here

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I will just take a quick peek at your comment before it posts to avoid getting bombarded by spam. Please don't take it personally, I'm sure you're a lovely person.

Popular posts from this blog

Homemade Drain Cleaner

To avoid clogging and bad odors, sink and tub drains should be periodically cleaned. A once a month cleaning with a non-toxic, homemade cleaner prevents needing a stronger, usually sodium hydroxide (lye) based, cleaner to remove clogs.  Sodium hydroxide is extremely caustic, and will damage the lungs if inhaled, burn skin and eyes, and can be fatal if swallowed.  In addition, the heat generated by using sodium hydroxide can soften PVC pipes, and damage old, corroded pipes.  It also changes the pH of water and can cause fish kills. A much nicer alternative to this harsh chemical is the simple combination of baking soda and vinegar, followed with boiling water.  When baking soda and vinegar are combined, they foam and expand, cleaning the sides of your pipes and dissolving fatty acids.  The boiling water then washes it all away.  This method is a great way to use up the box of baking soda in your frig that is not longer doing a good job of deodorizing. Ingredients: 1 Cup baki

Soapmakers: Why You Shouldn't Use Vinegar if You Come into Contact with Lye

It was one of the first things I learned when I began making my own soap; I read it in books and on the internet: "Always keep a jug of vinegar on hand when you are working with lye.  Vinegar neutralizes lye." Soapers, have you heard this?  Do you practice the habit of keeping vinegar nearby when you make your soaps?  So did I, until recently, when I read an interesting post on a soap forum, and then decided to research the claim myself.

Why Did My Chicken Lay That Strange Egg? {Decoding 10 Chicken Laying Issues}

What do you got? A huge egg with two yolks in it?  A wrinkly misshapen egg?  An egg with a soft shell?  Or perhaps the all-inclusive just plain weird looking egg? Whatever it is, I hope to help clear up some of the mystery behind: Why Did My Chicken Lay That Strange Egg?