8 Ways to Dehydrate Zucchini

Dehydrate zucchini in eight ways and stop throwing away your extra zucchini every year! Chips, cubes, and shreds, jerky and powder. Makes your abundance of zucchini harvest useful in so many ways - including zucchini flour!

And you can stop begging neighbors to take it your zucchini!!!

Have you seen the memes of yard flamingos being made from end of the season summer squash harvests? Or have you thought about zucchini bombs of bags of zucchini just dropped onto neighbor's doorsteps and running away?

Have you seen the memes of yard flamingos being made from end of the season summer squash harvests? Or have you thought about zucchini bombs of bags of zucchini just dropped onto neighbor's doorsteps and running away?

Or are you wanting to find ways of using zucchini to help add vegetables to your family's daily intake?

How to Dehydrate Zucchini - 8 Ways!

I've put together a collection of ways to dry zucchini for ways to eat other than simply tossed into a salad or soup.

Many of these can be used with seasonings to help create some tasty snacks that your kids will love! And they can be low-carb and keto-friendly snacks for you, too!

This works on most varieties of summer squash, though yellow squashes tend not to hold up to the noodles/jerky as well.

And no - no blanching required!

Dried Zucchini Chips

Zucchini chips are versatile, and done well, resemble Lays potato chips! But our absolute favorite are Dehydrated Pizza Zucchini Chips!

You can do them thin as these zucchini chip instructions show, or a little thicker for more bite. Either way - you'll love them all!!

1. Wash zucchini
2. Using a knife, a mandoline, or other slicer of your choice, cut your zucchini into slices. I recommend ¼" or so. I love this crinkle cutting tool to make a dill pickle effect!
3. Sprinkle on your favorite seasoning
4. Dry at 125°F/52°C for 8-12 hours. Remember, drying times are relative and your home's humidity, the moisture content of your produce, and your machine's strength make a difference. Leaving the peel will take a little longer than if you peel them first. It can also leave a bitter aftertaste for some folks.
5. Eat within a week or so for best results for seasoned chips with oil. Up to a year for plain chips for storage.

LEARN MORE: Best Seasoning Ideas for Veggie Chips

Zucchini Shreds

Dried zucchini shreds are perfect for putting up for winter baking and adding to make zucchini breads and muffins, for sneaking into casseroles and soups, for making zucchini hashbrowns, etc. They dry quickly and are perfect for storage.

1. Wash zucchini
2. Peel (optional)
3. Shred with a box grater or a food processor or even a fun cheese grater that is risk-free of scraping your fingers!
4. Spread on dehydrator trays lined with parchment/baking paper or fruit leather sheets.
5. Dry at 125°F/52°C for3-6 hours - making sure to stir a few times during the process to help separate shreds.
6. Store.

Yield: 1 7" zucchini is approximately 1 C shredded zucchini and 4 TB dehydrated zucchini shreds

To use in baking:

1. Use that conversion above to work for your quickbread recipe.
2. Rehydrate in water
3. Squeeze water out just as your quickbread recipe suggests
4. Continue with the quickbread recipe.

Zucchini Cubes

I love having dried zucchini cubes for a couple of reasons.

Yield: 1 7" zucchini is approximately 1 C of fresh zucchini cubes and ¼ C of dehydrated zucchini cubes

Dehydrate Zoodles

Zoodles can be used in place of pasta for a low-carb or Keto-friendly diet, as a crunchy layer in a sandwich, or as a side dish on its own with a little butter and seasoning.

Tip: The photo above shows the difference in drying and ease of storing between doing zoodle nests and laying them out. Nests can just sit on top of each other easily in an airtight container without completely breaking.

Rehydrating: Simply simmer in the broth you want to use in cooking.

Dehydrate Zucchini Slices

These can be used to make a Keto or carb-friendly replacement for lasagna noodles.

Tip - larger zucchini at a ½" slap is a great noodle replacement. Smaller zucchini tend to shink up a lot and need more layering to replace the concept of a lasagna noodle. As you can see in the photo above, because I did not have large noodles, and I peeled these, they are quite small and shriveled. They will still work, especially for doing lasagna cups in a muffin tin or small loaf pan.

Zucchini Jerky

For vegans, vegetable jerkies like eggplant and zucchini can give a sense of having 'jerky'. Play with your favorite marinades on your zucchini slabs to find one you love.

Zucchini Powder

Zucchini powder is great to add to your generic vegetable powder and boost the nutrition in everything that you eat.

Using Zucchini powder as a flour replacement

However, if you are interested in learning to use zucchini flour to replace regular flour to work towards a low-carb or keto-friendly lifestyle, check out my friend Victoria's post on using Squash Flour (her main example is with yellow squash, but she makes a note using zucchini towards the bottom).

Basically, ½ Cup zucchini flour replaces ½ cup of regular flour in your recipes. And her Gluten-Free Squash Flour Chocolate Cake recipe....to die for.

You can also try this chocolate swiss cake recipe!

Zucchini Gummies

My friend, Laure, at Commonsense Home has a great recipe for zucchini gummies that you're going to love!

How to Store Dehydrated Zucchini

In almost all of these projects, for long-term storage, conditioning is key.

Desiccant packs are helpful in high humidity if you are in and out of your jars a lot.

How to Rehydrate Zucchini:

• Zucchini can be rehydrated overnight in the refrigerator by placing your desired quantity in an airtight container covered in water.
• Or you can rehydrate 20 min before you want to use it by placing in a bowl with near-boiling water to steep while you prep the meal.
• If adding to a soup or stew that is slow-cooking, no rehydration is really necessary as it will rehydrate and cook while simmering.
• When rehydrating shreds for baked goods, rehydrate, then wring out the excess water just as if you were using fresh, then add to your recipe

Yields of Dehydrated Zucchini

Dehydrating Zucchini FAQ

Can I dehydrate in the oven?

Yes, you can, but keep a close eye on your produce because most ovens only go down to between 170-210°. Find more tips on dehydrating in an oven here.

What Kind of Dehydrator Should I Use?

I happen to use an Excalibur Dehydrator and Cosori Dehydrator, but it's not always the best choice for everyone because of budget, space, needs, etc. I wrote a great resource to help you decide which dehydrator is best for you.

What if my dried zucchini snacks get soft?

If you are creating these to snack on in the next week, and you find that they are getting a little chewy, just throw them back onto your dehydrator for an hour.

More Ideas for Preserving Zucchini

If you need even more ideas for preserving zucchini, here are so many ways to do it from canning to freezing, to creating candy, and dishes that preserve through freezing.