Dried Strawberries

Yesterday, B and I picked four boxes of strawberries. Here are two boxes...

So, you can imagine that FOUR boxes was a LOT of strawberries.

After processing one box and putting the cute freezer baggies in the freezer, I realized that if each box made as many quart bags as the first one, I'd end up with a lot of bags in the freezer (over 20 total). That's a lot of freezer space, even with our large chest freezer.

So, I decided to try my hand at drying them. I've never dried strawberries, though I know they're good since they're frequently in cereals and trail mixes. What the heck, right? Might as well tried.

I loaded up my dehydrator. Turns out it took most of one box to fill the entire thing. I coated the berries with a little bit of sugar to help the preservation once they were dried.
And, voila! The berries as of this morning (they started drying around 8pm last night, so this is at about the 12-hour mark). Result: They taste delicious.


They will rehydrate easily, AND: they taste SO much like strawberries. The freezer strawberries are good, but they get a bit mushy and lose a bit of their taste. These suckers are packed with flavor.

I'm waiting another few hours for the rest to dry, and then I'll start picking them off. I'd like to do another round or two!

Depending upon how much dried strawberries this ends up being (one quart? Two?), I may go back and get more strawberries. Do I have a problem? Maybe.