Chapter 12: Preserving Foods By Drying

Chapter 12 of The Modern Pioneer Cookbook Curriculum explores one of the oldest and simplest methods of food preservation—drying. This chapter invites students to discover how removing moisture from fruits, herbs, and citrus can extend shelf life, enhance flavor, and support a self-sufficient kitchen. Through hands-on recipes and age-appropriate activities, learners of all grade levels will connect traditional preservation practices to the modern-day goals of minimizing waste, eating seasonally, and preparing wholesome, homemade foods. (This lesson experience includes four free activity downloads!)

About The Modern Pioneer Cookbook Curriculum Lesson Experience Series

Hi! My name is Jamie O’Hara, and I’m a homeschooling mom, curriculum writer, and former classroom teacher. I recently had the pleasure of helping Mary Bryant Shrader create The Modern Pioneer Cookbook Curriculum, which includes extensive lesson plans for grades K-12 to complement Mary’s bestselling book, The Modern Pioneer Cookbook.

• Get The Modern Pioneer Cookbook Curriculum (Free and over 250 pages!)
• Get The Modern Pioneer Cookbook
• Read The Modern Pioneer Cookbook Curriculum Lesson Experience Article Series

Now, I’m excited to embark on a journey of experiencing these lessons with my own children, ages 6 and 8 (and sometimes my 3-year-old, too). I’ll be facilitating a total of 14 lessons, one for each chapter in The Modern Pioneer Cookbook Curriculum. As we go through the curriculum, I’ll document our experience to share with all of you!

Getting Started with Drying Foods

Building on the previous chapter’s focus on food preservation through water bath canning, Chapter 12 of The Modern Pioneer Cookbook introduces drying as another important method of preserving food. The table below summarizes the recipes, principles, and learning objectives for each lesson.

Grade Band	Recipe	Traditional Kitchen Principles	Learning Goals (Students will…)
K-4	How to Dry Apple Slices	1. Homemade food 2. Low-waste kitchens	● Discuss the role of drying foods in a homemade, low-waste kitchen ● Define dehydrate ● Prepare dried apple slices, following a recipe
5-8	How to Dry Citrus and Citrus Peel	3. Real, whole foods 4. Seasonal eating	● Discuss how drying foods can support the goal of eating real, whole foods seasonally ● Explain how drying works to preserve food ● Prepare dried citrus slices, following a recipe
9-12	How to Dry Fresh Herbs	5. Maximizing nutritional value 6. Preservation for self-sufficiency	● Differentiate between low-moisture herbs that can be air-dried and high-moisture herbs that must be dried in an oven or dehydrator ● Discuss how drying foods can support efforts to be more self-sufficient ● Prepare dried herbs, following a recipe

Chapter 12 provides several options for drying food: air-drying, oven–drying, and drying in an electric dehydrator. Since the focus of this chapter is on preserving food, check the required quantities for the recipe you’ll be following:

• For the K-4 recipe, you will need 12 apples of any variety.
• For the 5-8 recipe, you will need 12 oranges (or other citrus fruits).
• For the 9-12 recipe, you will need 3 bunches of fresh herbs. You can choose any variety of herbs, but only low-moisture herbs can be air-dried.

Activity Requirements

• For the K-4 activity, you will need plain, unlined white paper (such as printer paper) and brown paper as well. You can cut up brown packing paper or brown paper grocery bags. We cut our paper (both colors) into small rectangles of similar size.
• For the 5-8 activity, there is a bit of prep work, but not much. You will need to write down a few options on small pieces of paper, fold them, and place them in a hat, bowl, or bag, so students can choose one without reading it.
• The 9-12 activity doesn’t require any special supplies, just students’ kitchen journals and something to write with.

Planning for Students of Different Ages

Students of different ages can work together on any or all of the Chapter 12 recipes.

Older students can certainly participate in the elementary lesson, but they may become bored unless they put extra effort into their artwork or use more advanced art supplies. (For example, they could use watercolors for the fresh fruit and colored pencils or pastels for the dried fruit. Or, they could experiment with tea-staining white paper instead of using brown paper. Another idea might be creating a digital animation of a fresh fruit drying and shriveling up.)

High school students can participate in the middle school activity and give brief presentations on dehydrated food. Older or advanced elementary students may be able to give a short speech as well.

Younger students can participate in the hands-on high school activity involving observing and sorting herbs.

As always, it’s helpful to preview each lesson beforehand to plan for each unique student.

Discussion: Dried Foods

To start our Chapter 12 lesson, I asked my children to list as many dried foods as they could think of, including fruits, vegetables, and meats. We discussed how some foods have different names when they are dried, such as raisins (from grapes) and prunes (from plums). I had my kids list their favorite dried foods in their kitchen journals.

Next, we shifted to how dried foods are actually made. My son mentioned the time he left a few grapes out in the sun to see if he could turn them into raisins. My kids also mentioned oven drying, using an electric dehydrator, and freeze drying. I was impressed!

We talked about exactly what happens to food that is dehydrated. My preschooler was with us, and I had him help me pull out a few dehydrated foods from our pantry, including raisins, dried apples, and dried mangos. I asked him what color apples turn when they are dried, and he said, “brown.” Then I asked my older children to add to the description of dried food. They said the food shrinks and changes texture, usually getting tougher or chewier.

Reasons for Drying Food

I asked my children to brainstorm some reasons for drying food. We discussed the following reasons:

• Dehydrating preserves food so it doesn’t spoil.
• People might prefer the taste and texture of dried foods.
• Drying foods provides variety.

We also talked about good opportunities to eat dried foods, such as when camping, hiking, picnicking, or running errands; during power outages or emergencies; or when the fresh food is unavailable or you want a different taste or texture.

K-4 Activity: Dried Foods Worksheet

To help elementary students focus on the discussion and to get them writing a bit, I made a printable worksheet.

• Download the Dried Foods Worksheet (K-4) (PDF file)

To wrap up the discussion, I transitioned to the overarching themes of homemade food and waste prevention. We went over the importance of preparing foods at home so we can control the ingredients we include. We also touched on the value of reducing or eliminating waste, pointing to dehydration as just one method of food preservation that prevents waste.

5-8 Activity: Food Dehydration Speech

Like the K-4 lesson, the 5-8 discussion centers around defining dehydration and listing examples of dried foods, but it is framed within the context of different themes.

Each grade band in The Modern Pioneer Cookbook Curriculum focuses on two principles of the traditional foods kitchen. For middle schoolers, these themes are real, whole food, and seasonal eating.

For the middle school activity, students read several sections of The Modern Pioneer Cookbook before presenting a short speech on the topic of food dehydration. To prepare for their speech, they should take notes and/or discuss the information as they read.

To give the mini-speech activity a twist, students will blindly pick a specific (imaginary) audience to deliver the speech to. Communicating to different audiences is an important skill that aligns with English Language Arts (ELA) writing and speaking standards for this age group.

You can download a printable worksheet for students to plan their presentations.

• Download the Dehydration Presentation Activity (5-8) (PDF file)

You can also download a list of audiences that can be cut out and used for this activity.

• Download the Fictional Audiences for Dehydration Speech Activity (5-8) (PDF file)

9-12 Activity: Hands-On with Herbs

The 9-12 lesson begins with an activity segment where students work hands-on with herbs. This activity provides a multi-sensory experience as students have the opportunity to look, feel, smell, and possibly taste the herbs.

Students will identify the herbs and then sort them into two categories: high-moisture and low-moisture. This classification is important because only low-moisture herbs can be air-dried. High-moisture herbs need to be dried in an oven or dehydrator. I created a printable worksheet to accompany the high school lesson that you can download.

• Download the Herbs Activity (9-12) (PDF file)

After their activity, high schoolers have a discussion about dehydrating foods (and herbs in particular) as a way to support the traditional kitchen principle of preserving food for self-sufficiency.

Recipe: Drying Apples

For this lesson, we decided to use an electric dehydrator to dry our apples. This isn’t necessary; you can use an oven, which is what the recipe in The Modern Pioneer Cookbook calls for. But my sister has an electric dehydrator, and my children and I have never used one, so we were excited to give it a try.

Using an Electric Dehydrator

I was a bit intimidated about using a new appliance for the first time, and I expected a learning curve. But it was so easy! We only had one difficulty making this recipe, and it was not what I expected. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but our biggest challenge was coring the apples!

We have an apple corer/slicer, but we don’t have a device for coring alone. So, we cored the apples with a paring knife. Something was off in our technique because we kept breaking the apples apart when we pushed the core out. As a result, a few of our apples were no longer whole, meaning we couldn’t slice them into rings and ensure consistent results.

If we make dried apples again, I will probably get an apple corer first. It would make the process easier for kids overall.

Preparing the Apples

To get started on this recipe, we gathered 12 apples, a large bowl of water, and apple cider vinegar. After peeling, coring, and slicing the apples into rings, we placed them into the bowl of water and vinegar to prevent browning. Then we blotted them dry and placed them on the dehydrator trays. (If you’re using an oven, you’ll use a baking sheet with a cooling rack placed on top.)

Whether you use dehydrator trays or baking sheets, space the apple rings out so that they do not touch each other. You will need to use several trays or baking sheets to accommodate 12 apples.

We followed the guidelines that came with the electric dehydrator to determine the correct temperature and cooking time for the apples. If you use an oven, you’ll bake the apples at 200°F (93°C).

Whether using an oven or a dehydrator, make sure you check on the apples after the first few hours. If they’re starting to stick, you should turn them over. To ensure that the apples dry evenly, it can be a good idea to rotate the trays and shift their position onto different racks.

Aside from our coring mishaps, this recipe was easy overall, and I definitely recommend it!

Tasting the Recipe

The dried apples cooled very quickly after being removed from the dehydrator, and we were excited to taste them right away. We were pleased to find them flavorful and not crispy or hard. We chose to sprinkle cinnamon on our apple rings before dehydrating them, but this is optional.

Everyone in the family enjoyed the dried apples, especially when added to oatmeal the next morning. I can see using them to create trail mix, in granola bars or other baked goods, or on a charcuterie board.

Final Thoughts

Using my experience facilitating this lesson, here are my ultimate takeaways for anyone getting ready for Chapter 12:

• Electric dehydrators are useful, but they aren’t necessary to get started with preserving food by drying. All three recipes for the Chapter 12 lessons can be made using an oven. The 9-12 recipe also presents an even easier option: air-drying.
• Dehydrating takes several hours, so think about your students’ schedules before beginning your Chapter 12 recipe. Start early in the day so your students are available when the food is done.
• If you’re making dried apples and you don’t have experience coring whole apples with a paring knife, I suggest buying or borrowing an apple corer. This device will help ensure your apples stay whole and provide more consistent results overall.
• Finally, I suggest watching Mary’s videos with your students before getting started!
  • How to Dry Apples in the Oven