What Can You Dehydrate? Chart of Times & Temperatures

Dehydrating is the least fussy way to preserve the Canadian harvest — no jars, no pressure, no botulism math. The only two things you need to get right are temperature (by food type) and dryness (test it, don’t trust the clock). This is the quick-reference chart: what you can dehydrate, how to prep it, and how long it takes.

For the full method — equipment, the science, oven drying without a machine, and storage — see the dehydrating guide. This page is the lookup table.

Dehydration times & temperatures chart

Sources: NCHFP, Colorado State Extension and Penn State Extension — US guidance. Health Canada publishes no drying chart, and Bernardin’s site returns nothing for “dehydrate” or “blanch”. NCHFP’s own drying page does not publish a table either: it defers to Colorado State (fruits) and Montana State (vegetables).

The doneness test is the rule, not the clock. No authority we could find publishes per-food drying hours, and all three sources say why — time depends on piece thickness, how full the trays are, and the humidity in your kitchen. They give a test instead: fruit is done when it is leathery with no pockets of moisture, vegetables when brittle, jerky when a cooled strip cracks as you bend it but does not snap. The times below are guidance, not specification. Check the food, not the timer.

Corrected Aug 2026: this chart previously credited “Bernardin / Health Canada”, neither of which publishes it. Jerky drying time was 4–8 hours against NCHFP’s published 10–24 and has been corrected — that row is the one where drying time is a pathogen question rather than a texture one. Our jerky drying temperature stays at 65–70 °C, hotter than NCHFP’s 60 °C; hotter dries faster, so we keep it, but it is above the published figure and worth knowing. Eleven temperatures were below the 57–65 °C band every source states and have been raised to 60 °C, the single figure Colorado State and NCHFP both publish; the thirteen per-food dehydrating guides moved with them in the same change.

Food	Prep	Temperature	Typical time
Apple rings or slices	5 mm; lemon-water dip	60 °C / 140 °F	6–12 h
Banana chips	5 mm; lemon-water dip	60 °C / 140 °F	6–10 h
Pear slices	5 mm; lemon-water dip	60 °C / 140 °F	8–14 h
Strawberries	halved or 5 mm sliced	60 °C / 140 °F	8–14 h
Blueberries	whole; check/crack the skins first	60 °C / 140 °F	10–18 h
Fruit leather	3 mm purée on a liner	60 °C / 140 °F	4–8 h
Tomato slices	5–8 mm	60 °C / 140 °F	8–14 h
Zucchini chips	3–5 mm	60 °C / 140 °F	6–10 h
Carrots	3 mm; blanch 2–3 min	60 °C / 140 °F	6–10 h
Green beans	whole or split; blanch 2–3 min	60 °C / 140 °F	6–12 h
Corn (off the cob)	blanch 2–3 min	60 °C / 140 °F	6–12 h
Peppers	5 mm strips	60 °C / 140 °F	6–10 h
Mushrooms	3–5 mm	60 °C / 140 °F	4–8 h
Kale (chips)	de-stem; whole leaf	60 °C / 140 °F	2–4 h
Hardy herbs (rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano)	whole sprigs	35–40 °C / 95–105 °F	1–4 h
Tender herbs (basil, parsley, mint, cilantro)	de-stem; whole leaves	35–40 °C / 95–105 °F	2–6 h
Beef or game jerky	3–5 mm strips; marinated	65–70 °C / 150–160 °F — must reach 71 °C internal	10–24 h (see the jerky guide for how to hit 71 °C)

Temperature cheat sheet (by food type)

If a food isn’t on the chart, match it to the closest category:

• Herbs — 35–40 °C / 95–105 °F. Low and slow protects the volatile oils that carry the flavour.
• Vegetables — 60 °C / 140 °F. Many benefit from a 2–3 minute blanch first (carrots, corn, green beans).
• Fruit & fruit leather — 60 °C / 140 °F. The single figure Colorado State Extension and NCHFP both publish.
• Jerky / meat — 65–70 °C / 150–160 °F, and the meat must reach 71 °C / 160 °F internal. That internal temperature is the non-negotiable rule, and it has to be reached BEFORE drying starts, not after. Québec publishes 71 °C for beef and pork and 74 °C for wild or farmed game; no Canadian home-preservation authority we can reach publishes a jerky figure, and the before-drying order comes from the CFIA’s guidance to commercial dried-meat manufacturers. What that rule specifies — a dehydrator setting alone does not guarantee it. Simmering the marinated strips in their marinade for 5 minutes before drying is the most reliable route; a dehydrator that holds 70–75 °C for the whole cycle also gets there; A 10-minute finish in a 75 °C / 165 °F oven used to be offered here as a third route, and it was withdrawn on 3 September 2026 — heat stalls in meat already dried to leather, so a finishing step cannot do the job a starting step does. Both remaining routes are laid out in the jerky guide.

What you can dehydrate

Beyond the chart, these all dry well at their category temperature:

• Fruit: apples, pears, bananas, all berries, peaches, plums, grapes (into raisins), citrus slices and zest, mango, pineapple.
• Vegetables: tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, mushrooms, corn, carrots, celery, onions, sweet potato, beets, kale and other greens.
• Herbs & aromatics: every culinary herb, plus ginger and garlic (grind into powders).
• Meat: lean beef or venison jerky (trim all visible fat first).
• Made-from-dried: grind dehydrated tomatoes, mushrooms, or peppers into powders; purée fruit into leather.

What you should NOT dehydrate

The line is fat. Fat doesn’t dry — it goes rancid in storage, and on meat it’s a food-safety risk. Skip:

• Avocado and olives — too oily; they turn rancid fast.
• Dairy — milk, cheese, butter, yogurt. Home dehydrators can’t do this safely.
• Eggs — salmonella risk without commercial equipment.
• Fatty cuts of meat — use only lean cuts for jerky, and trim every bit of visible fat.
• Nut and seed butters — the oil separates and spoils.

And never dehydrate food that’s already begun to spoil — drying concentrates it, it doesn’t rescue it.

How to tell when it’s done

Dryness beats the clock. Pull a piece, let it cool (warm food feels more pliable than it is), then check:

• Fruit: leathery and pliable, no beads of moisture when squeezed.
• Vegetables: brittle or crisp — they should snap, not bend.
• Herbs: crumble to powder between your fingers.
• Jerky: bends and cracks but doesn’t break in two.

Then condition dried fruit and vegetables: seal in a jar for a week and shake daily. If moisture beads on the glass, it wasn’t dry enough — dry it further before long-term storage. Full storage and shelf-life details are in the dehydrating guide.

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No dehydrator yet? You can start in the oven or open air, or compare machines in the Canadian dehydrator buying guide.