These chewy dehydrated bananas are a great healthy snack and they're easy to make. Transform brown bananas into chewy dried bananas for your pantry or emergency supplies.
Author: Kris Bordessa, National Geographic author/certified master food preserver
Ingredients
5poundsRipe bananas
½ cuplemon juice
Instructions
NOTE: For every five pounds of bananas, use 1/2 cup of lemon juice. It will take 20 or so pounds to fill a 9-tray dehydrator. Adjust the amount to suit your needs.
Before you start, make sure you have a container in which to put the peels. I use a 5-gallon bucket to tote the peels out to the compost when I'm done.
Peel the bananas, collecting the peeled fruit into a large bowl. It will be fastest if you can peel them all at once.
Slice the bananas 1/4" thick. Believe it or not, a mandoline works great for this. Place sliced bananas into a bowl or tray with lemon juice. Toss the sliced bananas in the juice.
When you have about four cups of sliced bananas, spread them out on a dehydrator tray, then repeat. I like to fit as many as I can on each tray without letting them overlap. (Touching slightly is not a problem.)
Once your dehydrator is full, or you've sliced all the bananas you'll be drying, turn it on to 135 degrees Fahrenheit for 8-10 hours. This of course depends on your climate and humidity and dehydrator. Plan to be around to check them during those last couple of hours.
Notes
It helps to have a lovely assistant. If you can wrangle someone into peeling the bananas while you slice, it will go much more quickly.Timing is important. For chewy dried bananas, plan to turn the dehydrator on in the morning so the bananas can be put away that evening, or start them in the evening so they can dry overnight. You can let them go longer, absolutely, but they might be a bit more on the crispy side.I have a 9-tray Excalibur dehydrator. It takes about 35-40 pounds of bananas to fill it. Dehydrated, those bananas will fill a gallon jar or thereabouts.