by Texas Homesteader ~
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Last year’s pumpkin harvest was truly out-o-control! I harvested so many pumpkins! Sure, I shared several of them with family & friends. But I still ended up with mountains of my own.
I love to use these heirloom pumpkins for puree in my Pumpkin Granola so I cooked ’em up & pureed them. They were measured out into 2-cup measurements and frozen for future use.
But RancherMan was the wild-hog-hunting KING and our freezer was filled to capacity with pork. But I still had two remaining pumpkins…
They had some staying power, still looking as fresh as the day I harvested them. But I really needed to do something with them before they started to deteriorate. With no spare freezer room, what will I do?
I decided to Dehydrate the Pumpkins.
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I cooked the pumpkin outside and then pureed the pumpkin. Then I used my *Excalibur Dehydrator to dehydrate the pumpkin puree. Finally I powdered it with a *Coffee Grinder I keep just for this purpose.
Now I’ll admit I’m loving the dehydrated pumpkin puree! One whole pumpkin didn’t even fill up this tiny 1/2-pint jar! That right there is an example of some mad food preservation skills #amiright??
And even better, there’s no additional energy required to store this pumpkin puree in my pantry. Sealed tightly in the canning jar, I’m assuming this dehydrated puree will be good for a year or more!
Rehydrating The Dehydrated Pumpkin
But now I’m sharing how to put that dehydrated puree to use. Let’s try rehydrating pumpkin puree & see how it works.
To rehydrate, I measured 4 parts water to 1 part dehydrated powder.
Complicated Instructions:
Boil water, stir in dried, powdered puree and allow to rehydrate.
Some people say after you stir the puree into boiling-hot water, you should then allow the whole thing to cool as it rehydrates. This allows your dehydrated puree to soak up the liquid.
But my experience was as soon as I stirred the puree into the boiling-hot water, it rehydrated right then! Perhaps it’s because I used a coffee grinder to grind my puree into a fine powder?
For whatever reason, my pumpkin puree was rehydrated within about a minute!
(high-fives all the way around!)
Amazing! So from now on I’m not even going to attempt to freeze my pumpkin puree. It will be dehydrated every year from now on!
~TxH~
Links In This Post:
Other Pumpkin Articles
- Cooking Pumpkin Puree In A Standard Oven
- Cooking Pumpkin Puree In A Solar Oven
- Dehydrating Fresh Pumpkin
- Recipe: Pumpkin Granola
- Recipe: Easy Pumpkin Bread
See All Recipe Posts
What else do you use your dehydrated pumpkin for besides re-hydrating and using in recipes that call for pumpkin puree? Have you thought about whether you could use it “as is” for additional flavoring/nutrition in a chocolate cake or chocolate brownies? How about in icing, particularly powdered-sugar/milk glazes?
Ya know, you’d have to make sure your ground puree was completely finely powdered to use that way. My coffee grinder grinds it pretty finely but I’m not sure it would grind it THAT fine – maybe your grinder is better? I always rehydrate to puree but I use it for many different things, including pumpkin pancakes! (yum) ~TxH~
Thanks Tammy, I made plain pears but am going back over and getting another bag and will do vanilla. I asked my son which he wanted and he chose plain. I have some cinnamon sticks, so I might also make some spiced.
This is GREAT to know! I’m Pinning it, because I AM likely to forget the ratio. Thank you Tammy, for sharing it with us!
I typically go with the light syrup for my recipes Laurinda. Just to use less sugar I guess, but especially when the recipe I’m making the syrup for is already pretty sweet. It keeps it from being overbearing. ~TxH~
Hi, Tammy! This is great! I’m so happy to have this info. One question. Will it work to just dehydrate it and not grind it up?
Thank you!
I’m sure it would Jan. Rehydrating works best on smaller parcels so it obviously works best when the dried pumpkin puree has been ground, but I suppose it wouldn’t be any different than rehydrating something more solid like onions or even green beans. Eventually it will rehydrate, it just may take a little longer… If you give it a go, be sure to come back & share how it worked for you. ~TxH~
Hey Tammy,
This actually has nothing to do with your pumpkin, although it does involve food. A few years ago I shared a website for a recipe for vanilla pears with you. I don’t have the recipe right now and I can’t find the site. I came home from a friend’s house with a bag of pears last weekend. All the recipes I find use vanilla bean but the one I had used extract. Would you mind calling me with it? Thanks
Nancy, I’m so jealous you have fresh pears! Can’t wait until my tiny pear tree is old enough to finally start producing. Maybe this you can use this recipe? I always splash a little vanilla in my simple syrup, I love the taste it imparts! –> https://texashomesteader.com/preserving-the-harvest-pears-in-light-syrup/