dried Papaya
Describing the simple step-by-step process of drying papaya at home with a food dehydrator.
Food: Papaya
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Dehydrate Time: 22 hours
Total Time: 22 hours 10 minutes
These papaya rings were dried for about 22 hours, longer than any other foods I have previously dried.
drying Papaya
Papaya
I bought some papayas. No, not your normal papayas. These are smaller in size (only about 15 cm in length). And my favourite thing about them is that they have less seeds, so I don’t have to dig out a whole lot of tiny black seeds every time I eat a papaya.
I used two small papayas for dehydration.
preparing Papaya
To prepare the papayas for dehydration, I washed them, cut them in half and dug out the seeds. After that, I cut them into ringed slices about 0.5cm thick. I saw online where someone dried papaya with peel intact, so I got curious and decided to peel one papaya and left the other with peel on. Then, the papaya rings went straight on the dehydrator.
The preparation takes about 10 minutes.
drying Papaya
According to the manual, fruits should be dried at 55-60°C. I left the dehydrator on overnight and swapped the drying trays to ensure even dehydration.
These papaya rings were dried for about 22 hours, longer than any other foods I have previously dried.
The smell of dehydrating papayas is truly awful. It smells like something had spoiled and gone sour—really sour. Looking back, I probably could have turned off the dehydrator sooner, but back then I didn’t want to step foot in the kitchen unless it’s necessary.
dried Papaya
The dried papayas didn’t turn brown but rather turned a darker orange. The texture of dried papaya rings are hard and crispy on the edges.
I first thought these dried papaya rings wouldn’t taste good because of how bad they smelled when drying. But surprisingly, they taste quite nice. Although, I wouldn’t recommend leaving the peel on because the ones with peel on tasted bitter.
Even though they taste good, I probably wouldn’t be drying another batch of papayas because I had had to air out the kitchen for a few hours after that dehydration. I don’t think I can bear that smell once time.
