Mmmmmm, I enjoy munching on fresh celery sticks from our garden or regrown in my kitchen. However, what does one do if they have way more celery than they can munch on or cook? That was my dilemma and my solution was learning how to dry celery.

You do not need a food dehydrator for this, your oven will work just fine if it has the drying feature. Your fresh celery will have to be blanched before you can go ahead with the drying process, in order to retain the color.

Here’s What You’ll Need:

• fresh celery
• large pot
• large bowl
• tongs
• ice cold water
• cookie sheet
• sharp knife
• colander
• paper towel
• cutting board
• mason jar

There are a couple of things you have to do during the prep stage. First wash your celery, then cut it into long slices all this while preheating your oven’s dry setting to 135 degrees F. Boil water in the pot, but also have your bowl of ice water sitting nearby.

Put a few celery sticks at a time into the boiling water, allowing to boil for 60 seconds. Then use the tongs to pull them out and immediately dunk them into the ice water. Drain water using a colander and use the paper towels for drying too.

Dice your celery on the cutting board, and spread it evenly on your cookie sheet. Dry for 10 to 18 hours at 135 degrees F. When they are crispy and hard, they are dry. Leave out to cool, before storing in an air tight container in cool place.

You can follow step by step instructions on the Ann’s Entitles Life blog, here…

How To Dry Fresh Celery

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