Dehydrating Cucumbers

The cool summer in Michigan during 2013 was not great for going to the beach but it was definitely good for cucumbers.  In fact, the summer was so good I was able to harvest at least 100 pounds of cucumbers.  Not too bad given the fact I used two 2 dollar packets of seed to get that production!  Need proof?  Check out my Facebook page.

What does a guy do with 100 pounds of cucumbers over the course of five weeks?  Lets just say I made a lot of friends around the neighborhood and at work but annoyed my family by over-aggressively pushing to eat cucumbers for every meal.  Oh well, You can't win them all!

I am not a big fan of wasting anything so I decided to try different ways to use cucumbers.  After remembering that my wife occasionaly buys dried cucumbers from the store (for over 4 bucks a pound), I decided to try making some on my own.

I know what you are thinking.  Dehydrated cucumbers do not sound appealing.  Most people think that when I talk about making them.  You do need to try them though.  I brought a bunch of cucumber chips on vacation recently and everybody enjoyed them.  My kids love them as well.  They actually prefer dehydrated cucumbers over potato chips.

Making dehydrated cucumbers is very simple.  To make them, you simply cut a cucumber into thin slices and put them on the dehydrator.  It doesn't get any more simple than that.  The only tip I can offer is to soak them in a fruit preserver that you can purchase from any store and water.  This will make the cucumbers less prone to brown up during the dehydrating process.

Slicing cucumbers ready to be sliced.

You can soak the cucumber slices in water/fruit preserver if you like.

A tray of cucumbers ready to go.

Finished product!

Enjoy!