Dehydrated Kiwi Fruit

Dehydrated kiwi fruit is a delicious snack and a healthy treat. It’s a tangy, sweet snack that’s like a natural sweet and sour candy!

Dried fruit is an easy and great way to preserve and store fruit for a long time. It can also enhance the flavor and sweetness of fruit, especially one that is high in natural sugars.

Homemade dried kiwi fruit is a healthy snack that’s great for the immune system. When drying your own fruit, you can ensure it is preservative and sulfite free.

Kiwifruit

Kiwifruit is delicious and tangy fruit, native to central and eastern China. It is also known as Chinese gooseberry. It usually has a furry outer and a bright green middle, though some varieties have smooth skin and yellow or even red middles. Sometimes the name is shortened to just Kiwi, especially in the United States and parts of Europe.

However, in New Zealand, the kiwi bird is the native bird so the fruit remains known as Kiwifruit to avoid mixups. Kiwi fruit is high in vitamin C and has other vitamins too like potassium, vitamin K, folate, and vitamin E. When drying fruit, the vitamin C content is reduced a bit but there is still a huge amount of vitamins and nutrients that remain.

A kiwifruit vine can produce a very large amount of fruit, so if you have an abundance, drying it is a good way to store it long-term.

The fresh kiwi fruit can be peeled before drying though it isn’t a necessity.

The seeds don’t need to be removed. They add a pleasant layer of crunch against the chewy dried fruit.

Choose ripe fruit when making dehydrated kiwi fruit. Unripe kiwis are too firm and sour.

How to dehydrate fruit?

Dehydrated kiwi fruit snacks are dried at a low temperature for a long period of time until all the water content in the fruit has gone. The drying process is long and slow to ensure the moisture has gone in the whole fruit (including the middle), and not just dried out the edges.

For best results, use a food dehydrator. This has consistent drying temperatures and multiple dehydrator trays to dry lots of fruit at a time. The drying time it takes to dehydrate kiwi fruit depends on the drying temperature and the thickness of the fruit.

The kiwi fruit will shrink considerably in size once it is dried. If you can, dry a few pounds of kiwi fruit at once to make the most of the drying time needed. It’s such a great snack, it’s shame to only make a small batch.

Equipment

You will need a food dehydrator. The dehydrator used in this post was a 9-tray Excalibur dehydrator.

Method

If you want to, peel the kiwifruit with a vegetable peeler or a paring knife. Or, leave the skin on.

On a cutting board, use a sharp knife and cut each kiwifruit into thin slices around 1/4 inch thick. Cut them as evenly as you can to ensure the fruit dries consistently. If you cut them thicker, they will take longer to dry. Cutting them thinner will speed up the drying process.

The fresh pieces can be soaked in lemon juice to stop them from discoloring throughout the dehydration process. This is an optional step.

Lay the kiwi slices in a single layer on a dehydrator tray.

Dehydrate at 135°F (60°C) until they are dry, but they will still be a bit flexible and chewy. This can take between 10-16 hours depending on the thickness of the kiwifruit.

Turn off the dehydrator and let the dehydrated kiwi chips dry for a further 2 hours at room temperature.

Once they are completely cooled, store the dried kiwi chips in an airtight container or mason jars. Check the dry kiwi in the sealed container after a few days to ensure there is no condensation accumulating on the sides of the jar or container. If there is, then the kiwifruit wasn’t properly dried and should go back in the dehydrator.

Long-term storage – Properly dried kiwifruit can last over a year, but if it’s not dried correctly a little moisture can ruin the batch.

Store the dry fruit in a sealed jar out of direct sunlight. The hardest part is to savor this sweet treat and not eat it all once!

Why not try dried pineapple too!

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