How to Make Sun Dried Tomatoes (in a dehydrator)

Matt bought me an awesome new dehydrator for my birthday (which was in May) and I finally got around to using it this weekend. My tomatoes are starting to explode despite the pests and I need to quickly get into preservation mode or risk losing them (there’s no way we could eat them all fresh!).

Since I’m freezing pesto, beans and fruit I thought I’d save some freezer space and make sun-dried tomatoes. I had never done this before so it was a learning process for me.

I sliced each Roma tomato in half or quarters depending on the size and sprinkled sea salt and dry basil on them. I arranged them on a drying rack.

While I was preparing the tomatoes Matt came into the kitchen to eat some Bing cherries. He told me there were too many for him to eat before they go bad so I suggested we dry some. We sliced them in half and filled two more trays. For the cherries I used fruit screens on the drying racks. They make getting the sticky fruit off of the rack easier.

It took about 20 hours for both the cherries and tomatoes to dry (twice as long as I thought). I am still not sure that they were totally dried so I decided to freeze them anyway. I will use the cherries in muffins or breads this fall.