How to Dehydrate Plums: A Quick & Easy Tutorial
One of my favorites times of the year is when our fruit trees and veggie patch explodes into full production mode and I can get in the kitchen to start chopping, roasting, canning and dehydrating all the goodness! If you’re up to your ears in plums like we are, this tutorial is for you. Dehydrating plums is one of the best ways to enjoy them all year and get the most out of your harvest, and drying them is so quick and easy. No simmering, canning or baking required!
All you’ll need is some time to chop the plums and a dehydrator. Let’s dive in and create some goodness together!
Dehydrated Plums Recipe Tutorial
Step 1: Harvest and wash your plums - Our family has a handful of Italian plum trees, which grow these small, sweet little plums that fit great onto our dehydrator trays!
Dehydrating plums when they’re sweet and soft create the best flavor and texture. Avoid hard, unripe plums and mushy sloppy ones. You want them slightly squishy with all that natural sweetness there from ripening!
*I love to rinse mine with a mesh basket that can fit over my sink and drain as I wash them. You can find it in our harvest tools list below!
Step 2: Slice your plums in half and remove pits and watch out for worms inside! Because we do not spray our trees with pesticides, there will be a small worm near the pit of the plum every once in awhile. Just take out the worm with the pit and you’re good to go.
Step 3: Fill the tray of your dehydrator with plums facing skin up - Make sure flat part of where the pit of the plum was is laying facedown on the tray. This will help your plums dry much more evenly.
Don’t worry about putting paper or parchment down on your tray, this will just slow down the dehydration process. The plain dehydrator tray does it’s magic all on its own!
Fill your trays as full as possible. It’s OK if your plums are touching when they go into the dehydrator! They are going to shrink as they dry.
If you do not have a dehydrator, my first tip is to check your local thrift store! We got our dehydrator from a thrift store and are constantly finding them there for great prices. If you don’t want to go on a hunt for one, I’m linking one we like below in our list of supplies.
Step 4: Set your dehydrator to 125 degrees Fahrenheit and hit start. The time it takes to dry them depends on how juicy and big your plums are. Our plums take about 10 hours to be fully dehydrated.
Make sure you check your plums at 8 hours. If you can still press your finger into them and they feel squishy, they need more time. But if they go too long, they’ll become hard, almost so hard that you can’t chew it! I take the plums that feel done off the tray at 8 hours and give the really juicy ones more time. You can dry your plums to whatever consistency you want by giving them more or less time on the trays.
Store in airtight bags in the freezer or in an airtight container on your shelves and enjoy!
If you overdo your plums, don’t throw them out, you can use them in recipes like stews or tenderloins! We have a really delicious Plum Pork Tenderloin recipe in our Cookbook, Dinner Changes Everything. Check it out!
Our Dehydrating Essentials:
🍎 Shop a food dehydrator similar to ours: https://amzn.to/4qDW6xL
🍐 Add on trays for your dehydrator: https://amzn.to/3UKVdre
🫛 Our favorite knives for ALL the harvest recipes: https://amzn.to/3O6OUri
🍅 The best over the sink mesh basket: https://amzn.to/4h5ZqgX
Here's to making memories around your table! If you're loving cooking and filling your table be sure to check out our cookbooks, Dinner Changes Everything and Red Tin Treats ECookBook. It is amazing what happens when you turn your kitchen into a delicious tool to gather your people.
Looking for more quick & easy recipes? Here’s our full Cooking Class Playlist on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfPIhWGHaEXGS7vkRnkR3AHec94ad9e1o
Our backyard table…
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