Canning isn’t difficult, but it requires equipment as well as hands-on time. You need to follow a few safety guidelines, and it takes a little practice to get it down to an easy routine. Candying is easy and is an easy way to preserve many fruits. Smoking and curing meats are also not difficult, but doing it well can take a little practice.
Pickling and fermenting are also easy to do (especially when you combine that with canning), but you just can’t pickle everything. Well, maybe you can but that would get a bit monotonous.

That brings us to dehydrating.

As mentioned, preserving food at home, in your kitchen, is a great way to save money, and using a food dehydrator is a safe and easy way to do just that. Dehydrated food stored in a cool, dry place will keep for months, or even years.

If you’re only occasionally dehydrating food, you don’t even need to purchase any special equipment to do it. People have been using the sunshine and dry summer heat for the job for thousands of years. However, the summer weather can be unpredictable, and some areas or climates are better suited for the job than others.

You can also use any number of appliances you already own to dehydrate small batches of food. These could include your oven, toaster oven, air fryer, or even your microwave. If, however, you want more consistent results, or you are dehydrating regularly? You’re going to want to start looking into a quality kitchen food dehydrator.

There are a variety of food dehydrators to choose from, ranging from small hobby-type dehydrators to full-blown freeze dryers. In this article, we’re focusing on one of our favorite types of food dehydrators, and that is the box-style, with a rear-mounted fan.

The small stackable ones most people buy do work, but most don’t use a fan, so drying times tend to be lengthy. Also, you’ll need to reorganize the trays frequently to dry evenly. Then there are stackable food dehydrators that include a fan to circulate the heat. These work considerably faster, but you’ll still need to rotate those trays often to get even drying.

Box-style food dehydrators, with a fan in the back, move the heat across the surface of the food more efficiently and evenly, reducing drying time and the need to shuffle the trays so often. Because the trays slide in and out of the box on this type of food dehydrator, you can use the box for taller projects, like raising bread or fermenting yogurt, and so much more.