Mandolin Slicing

One of the advantages of a mandolin slicer is that you get nice even slices.  When dehydrating foods, keeping your pieces of food at an even thickness and size insures even drying.

There are many brands of mandolins on the market. Some have single blades, others have multiple blades. These machines can get quite expensive, so be sure to check with your local thrift store before purchasing. Keep an eye out at yard sales and flea markets, too!

Most are designed either with grooves to place on a container to catch the sliced pieces or with a tilting rack of some sort to let the pieces drop onto a cutting board.

Some have adjustable blade widths for varying thicknesses of food.  My machine has interchangeable blades for slicing, grating, or julienne strips.

Banana Tips and Tricks

First, know that home dehydrated bananas will not turn out like the store-bought ones. The commercially prepared ones are sulfured.

There are several ways to prepare your bananas. Usually they need to be treated with lemon juice or ascorbic acid (Fruit Fresh) to keep them from turning brown. This is purely aesthetic and does not affect the taste in any way.

I’ve tried several ways of treating them, but the easiest is with a pump bottle. 

Get a bottle of lemon juice, any brand will do. Remove the cap and replace it with a pump bottle sprayer. You will use the lemon spray on all fruits to keep them from turning brown. The mist is so fine, that it will not affect the taste at all.  

Little Round Pieces:

Mandolin Slicer

One of the advantages of a mandolin slicer is that you get nice even slices.  When dehydrating foods, keeping your pieces of food at an even thickness and size insures even drying. 

There are many brands of mandolins on the market. Some have single blades, others have multiple blades. These machines can get quite expensive, so be sure to check with your local thrift store before purchasing. Keep an eye out at yard sales and flea markets, too! 

Most are designed either with grooves to place on a container to catch the sliced pieces or with a tilting rack of some sort to let the pieces drop onto a cutting board. 

Some have adjustable blade widths for varying thicknesses of food.  My machine has interchangeable blades for slicing, grating, or julienne strips.

Assorted Interchangable Blades

Notice the notches on the bottom of my mandolin. They are on both edges of the machine and are designed to hang onto either side of the bowl or container.  In this case, I'm preparing to slice directly into a veggie keeper to store in the fridge until I'm ready to rack 'em.

This day I filled three containers with zucchini and yellow squash.  We were having sauteed squash for supper. I didn't know how much I would be using, so this way, whatever is left over can go can be eassily stored until I'm ready to pop them into the dehydrator.