This tutorial for how to dry bananas may seem super simple, but there’s one simple trick to making sure they’re actually chewable.
I mentioned the other day how much I was enjoying using my mom’s old Food Dehydrator lately. It is a great way to make things like flax crackers and fruit leather without heating up the kitchen, but another thing I’ve been working on lately is making road trip snacks for our upcoming 12+ hour drive to Central Texas.
Fresh bananas get smashed everywhere by bored children in car seats. You don’t want to know how I know that.
You may be wondering why I dried my bananas into these ugly little strips when I could have sliced them into nice, attractive little rounds. The answer is quite simple: I can’t chew the pretty ones. It’s important to know that these are not the same as the freeze-dried bananas you’re used to seeing in your trail mix. Those are a different story all together.
Something about slicing home-dehydrated bananas that way makes them about as easy to chew as car tires, but slice them in strips and they go down even easier than raisins. It’s weird for sure, but if you want to try drying them in round slices, I recommend trying a small batch of each and then comparing the two.
My twelve-month-old can eat the strips, but not the rounds, so I’m going with strips, even if they do look a little weird.
PrintHow To Dry Bananas
If you’re looking for a good snack for your kids, dried bananas a healthy and easy to prepare.
Ingredients
- Bananas, ripe to overripe
Cut bananas into inch long – or however long you feel is convenient – pieces. Place on Dehydrator trays
They’ll be kind of soft to the touch, and you may doubt whether they’re truly dry, and while it’s always better to be safe than sorry, just know that they won’t get hard like the round slices do.
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Laura says
I’ve dried bananas as rounds before, but now I’m interested to see how the strips turn out. Looks like I’ll be doing some dehydrating over the weekend!!
Chris says
If you run your thumb up the middle of a banana it naturally splits into three pieces. These pieces are perfect for drying and you don’t need to pick up a knife at all!