Two Ways to Preserve a Strawberry Harvest
Strawberry season is in full swing here! There are a hundred ways to preserve strawberries, some of my favorites are freezing, drying, and turning them into fruit leather.
Strawberries are an easy crop to grow, they do well in the ground and in pots and will send out runners to make new plants so you’ll always have new plants to harvest from the next year. They are relatively pest free, though pill bugs and ants do love the ripe berries so make sure to pick them before they get to them!
So, you’ve harvested a whole colander worth of strawberries or maybe you even went to a local u-pick-it farm and bought a whole flat or more of strawberries. You eat as many you can possiblly handle and then you still have pounds of strawberries left. What do you do? Well dry them of course! Drying is a great way to preserve fruit for a long time. It’s also less energy intensive than canning. Making jam is awesome but only if your family eats a lot of jam. Mine doesn’t, but they will devour dried fruit like it’s candy, which it pretty much is… When dried and stored properly strawberries can last a year or more.
Preserving Strawberries
You can dry strawberries in two ways, as sliced dried pieces of fruit or as a purée better known as fruit leather.
Whichever method you choose, I highly recommend using a dehydrator. They are seriously a game changer. If you are pressed for cash or just have so many berries that you don’t have enough dehydrator trays you can use a clean previously unused window screen. The screen method will take several days and is only useful for method 1. I don’t recommend sun drying because the sun at midday tends to cook the fruit. You definitely do not want it to be cooked. You just want to remove the water from the fruit.
Method 1: Dried Fruit Piece
Materials
Food dehydrator (or clean window screen in a pinch)
mason jar
Wash the berries and remove the green leaf caps. If your berries are large cut into slices 1/4-1/2 inch thick. If they are small you can cut them in half laying the the cut side down on your drying tray.
Fill as many drying trays as you’d like and then set the temperature to 115 degrees. I find that a temperature higher than that and they dry too fast and hard. You want them to be plyable but definitely. When they seem done, let them cool completely.
Then transfer them to a clean mason jar and leave the lid open to let them acclimate for atleast a day. You want to look out for any moisture build up. if you see that take them out and spread them on clean towel and let them dry another day with good air flow. Then put them back in the jar and try again. If there is no moisture then you can close the lid and put them in a cool dry place. Don’t forget to label them!
Method Two: Fruit Leather
Materials:
blender
dehydrator
fruit leather trays (these really are necessary)
Fruit leather is super simple. Wash the strawberries and remove the leaves and stems. Toss the cleaned fruit in a blender and blend until smooth. I do not add sugar, it’s totally unnecessary. Next spread the pureed fruit on to the fruit leather tray. Give the tray a gentile shake to even out the level of the purèe and place in your dehydrator. Once again use a lower setting of about 115 degrees.
You’ll want to set yourself a reminder to check the dryness level occasionally. You certain don’t want any sticky undried parts but also don’t want it too dry. It should be pliable and slightly tacky when done.
To store, peel the leather off the tray cut (or tear like I did) into pieces, place in glassware or if you have the time, stack each piece between a piece of wax paper. Store in a cool dark place or leave on the counter with kids around and they’ll be gone in an hour….
