I buy a lot of dried fruit to snack on and put into nut bars & baked oatmeal, it’s an easy way to add a little sweetness and flavor without adding a lot of excess sugar. This year I’m trying to put up more local foods but there aren’t a lot of sources of fruit in Montana. So I was wondering if rhubarb would dehydrate well. It wouldn’t be sweet but if it would work then it would come in handy to add a little flavor to my baked oatmeal that I make every couple of weeks.
Laid out on rack, next time I'll put in twice as much.
I grabbed a few stocks of rhubarb and cut them into disks, laid them out on the dehydrator and let them do their thing. Since they have such a high water content you can put them in pretty close and they will shrink fairly quickly. This dehydrator doesn’t have adjustable temperatures so I let them go until they were dry, 6-8 hours.
They get so tiny 
This test batch went into my baked oatmeal and worked great. I put a little rhubarb-orange butter on the top to make up for the tart rhubarb pieces. You could soak the rhubarb pieces in a simple syrup before dehydrating if you wanted them sweeter, but I prefer to leave them tart and adjust the recipe I’m adding them to if need be. Time to fill up a jar or two to use over the winter!
Added a nice burst of flavor in my baked oatmeal!
I’m the founder/moderator for Punk Domestics (www.punkdomestics.com), a community site for those of use obsessed with, er, interested in DIY food. It’s sort of like Tastespotting, but specific to the niche. I’d love for you to submit this to the site. Good stuff!
Thanks Sean, I ♥ your site!
Excellent! Thank you for this <3
Great idea! I’m not much of a rhubarb person but I am going to try trying this! Sounds good.
Moriah, I didn’t sweeten the rhubarb so they end up being pretty tart. If you aren’t a rhubarb fan you might want to sweeten before dehydrating or reconstitute in maple syrup or some other sweetener!
I also add a few died pieces of rhubarb to water to flavor it. It makes for a rhubarb-aid.
Michelle, great idea… a few pieces of rhubarb, a lemon slice & honey. How refreshing!
Oh! Wondering what these little babies would be like steeped into tea. Maybe with a little dried lavender and a drop of honey…
That’s a great idea Mindy! I’ll have to try it