Dehydrating Sweet Potatoes

Here are several methods of dehydrating sweet potatoes. Bake or boil them first, season with sweet or savory ingredients, and use them in meals, soups, snacks, and desserts. Learn how to dehydrate sweet potato chips, bark, niblets, and soup powder. Sweet potatoes are high in fiber, potassium, vitamin A, and carbohydrates.

Dehydrating Baked Sweet Potatoes

Place several medium sweet potatoes on a baking pan in oven preheated to 375°F (190°C). Line pan with baking paper for easier cleanup. Poke a few holes in top of potatoes. Bake for fifty minutes or a little longer for larger potatoes.

Remove baked sweet potatoes from oven, let cool, and remove skins. The skins slip right off.

Dehydrating Sweet Potato Niblets

Slice potatoes crosswise about ⅜ to ½ inch thick, and then cut the slices into small cubes of the same thickness. If potatoes have gotten too soft, place in the freezer for a few minutes to firm them up for easier cutting.

Spread cubed sweet potatoes on dehydrator trays. Dehydrate at 135°F (57°C) for approximately ten hours.

Using Dehydrated Sweet Potato Niblets

Dried sweet potato niblets can be eaten dry, but they are a little chewy. I like them that way.

Include sweet potato niblets as part of a vegetable medley in backpacking recipes. They will add color and extra nutrition.

See this back issue of Trail Bytes: Inca Stew Recipe

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Dehydrating Sweet Potato Chips

After baking and cooling the sweet potatoes, remove the skins and slice crosswise thinly, between ⅛ and ¼ inch thick (½ cm).

Place sweet potato chips in a single layer on dehydrator trays. Dehydrate @ 135°F (57°C) for approximately ten hours.

Rehydrating Sweet Potato Chips

You can eat dehydrated sweet potato chips as a healthy snack, but they are chewy. Take your time, savoring each one while you hike. For a softer treat, soak thirty grams of chips in ⅓ cup of hot or cold water for ten to fifteen minutes. Dust with seasoning salt or sugar and cinnamon. For a larger serving, soak forty-five grams of sweet potato chips in ½ cup of water.

Can you dehydrate raw sweet potatoes? You can, but the color will be bland, not bright orange, and they won’t be as digestible as cooked sweet potatoes. Raw sweet potatoes can be dried and ground into powder to use in breads or other baked goods. To dry raw sweet potatoes, slice thinly as above; then grind into powder.

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Sweet Potato Bark

Sweet Potato Bark turns into mashed sweet potatoes in your pot – or in your mouth. Snack on it in its bark form while hiking, chewing it slowly to enjoy the hints of cinnamon and maple syrup. In the evening, it makes a tasty side dish of mashed sweet potatoes. For breakfast, I use it in a high-energy porridge with apples and raisins.

How to Make Sweet Potato Bark

Ingredients:

• 1 large or 2 small sweet potatoes (approx. 13 ounces before peeling)
• ½ cup apple juice
• 1 Tbsp. real maple syrup
• 1 tsp. cinnamon

Cook

Peel sweet potatoes and cut into chunks.

Boil until soft, drain, and mash. Note: Baked sweet potatoes may be used in place of boiled sweet potatoes. Either way works great.

Stir in apple juice, maple syrup, and cinnamon. If you like nutmeg, replace half of the cinnamon with nutmeg.

Blend

Run the mashed sweet potatoes through a blender until creamy. If your blender struggles with the mixture, add a little more juice or water.

Dehydrate

Spread thinly and as evenly as possible on dehydrator trays covered with nonstick sheets. Shoot for an eighth inch thickness. The quantities in this recipe will cover one Excalibur Dehydrator tray.

Dehydrate at 135°F (57°C) for eight to ten hours. The sweet potatoes will form a sheet that may have cracks running through it.

After about seven hours of drying, flip the bark over and peel off the non-stick sheets. Continue drying the sweet potato bark directly on the dehydrator mesh sheets.

Depending on how long you dry it, sweet potato bark will either tear like fruit leather or snap into pieces. For snacking and short term use, you may prefer to dry it to the leather stage. If packing for a trip that will last more than a month, dry it longer to the snappy bark stage.

Yield:

One large or two small sweet potatoes (approx. 13 ounces before peeling) will yield approximately ¾ cup of bark and weigh 2½ ounces. Increase the ingredients proportionately for larger batches.

Dehydrated Sweet Potato Bark Recipes

Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Servings: 1

Ingredients:

• ½ cup sweet potato bark
• ¾ to 1 cup water

Combine bark and water in pot and heat over low flame until hot, stirring frequently. It is not necessary to boil. Add a few more spoonfuls of water as needed to keep the sweet potatoes from getting scorched on the bottom of the pot.

Sweet Potato Bark Porridge

A high-energy breakfast or a tasty dessert.

Servings: 1

Ingredients:

• ½ cup sweet potato bark
• ½ cup dried apples
• ¼ cup raisins
• ¼ cup granola and/or nuts
• 1¼ cup water
  

At Home:

Pack raisins and granola/nuts in separate small plastic bags and enclose with bark and apples in a larger plastic bag.

On the Trail:

Combine all ingredients except granola/nuts with water in pot and soak for five minutes. Light stove and heat over low flame until hot, stirring frequently. It is not necessary to boil. If the sweet potatoes soak up most of the water, add a few more spoonfuls of water to prevent the potatoes from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Remove pot from heat and wait ten minutes to give the apples more time to rehydrate. Stir in granola or chopped nuts before eating.

Sweet Potato Pudding

Sweet potato pudding is quick and easy to make on the trail by rehydrating sweet potato bark or powder.

How to Make Sweet Potato Bark with Baked Sweet Potatoes

More nutrients are retained by baking compared to boiling. Bake sweet potatoes on a baking pan for fifty minutes at 375°F (190°C). Use parchment paper under the potatoes to save yourself some scrubbing. After the potatoes have cooled, put one pound (453 grams) of chunked potatoes into a blender with half a cup of apple juice, one tablespoon of maple syrup, and one teaspoon of cinnamon. Blend until smooth.

One pound of cooked sweet potatoes yields two cups blended mixture (473 ml). If using an Excalibur Dehydrator, one cup is the ideal quantity to spread thinly on each tray. Dehydrate at 135°F (57°C) for approximately ten hours. For efficiency, double or triple the recipe to use as many trays as possible.

One cup of wet blended sweet potatoes yields ¾ cup bark, or ⅓ cup powder. Weight of either is 65 grams.

Dried sweet potato bark makes a chewy trail snack that’s loaded with nutrients. It reverts back into sweet potatoes with the addition of hot water. While not necessary, you can powder the dried bark by running it through a blender. Powdering reduces volume and slightly speeds up rehydration, but you lose the option of eating the bark as a chewy snack.

How to Make Sweet Potato Pudding

Serves 1 – 2

Combine ¾ cup bark, or ⅓ cup powder, with 1½ cups water. Gently heat while stirring continuously until pudding is hot. It will thicken within two minutes. Another way to prepare it is to pour boiled water over the bark or powder in a separate container.

For the ultimate trail dessert, top the pudding with glazed pecan sauce.

How to Make Glazed Pecan Sauce

Serves 1 – 2

Combine one teaspoon of corn starch and two teaspoons of sugar with half a cup of cool water. Stir until corn starch dissolves. Do not add corn starch to hot water, because it will form clumps. Add a quarter cup of pecan pieces and light stove. Bring mixture to a light boil and let it bubble for a minute. It will thicken and turn a nice shade of brown.

Logistics: Prepare the pudding first and set aside in an insulated serving container. Then make the sauce and spoon over the pudding.

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Sweet Potato & Carrot Soup

Warm spices turn this sweet potato soup from mellow to marvelous. Reduced to powder after dehydration, it rehydrates in minutes into a thick, creamy soup.

Servings: 3 – 4

Ingredients:

• 1¾ lbs. sweet potatoes (800 g)
• ¾ lb. carrots (340 g)
• 5 cups vegetable broth (1183 ml)
• 1 medium onion (100 g)
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 Tbsp. fresh ginger
• 1 tsp. curry powder
• ¾ tsp. salt
• ½ tsp. turmeric
• ¼ tsp. paprika
• ¼ tsp. pepper
• ¼ tsp. cinnamon
• ½ Tbsp. cooking oil

Cooking Sweet Potato & Carrot Soup

Peel sweet potatoes and carrots, and cut them into small pieces. Dice onion, and mince garlic and ginger.

Minimally coat a large soup pot with cooking oil. Cook onions on medium high heat, stirring frequently, for ten minutes. Add spoonfuls of vegetable broth to keep the onions from scorching. Reduce heat and add garlic, ginger, all spices, and more broth as needed. Cook about five minutes.

Add sweet potatoes, carrots, and vegetable broth. Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce to simmer for thirty minutes.

Allow soup to cool, then run it through a blender.

This recipe yields approximately 7¼ cups of blended soup.

Dehydrating Sweet Potato & Carrot Soup

Spread blended soup thinly on dehydrator trays covered with nonstick sheets. If using an Excalibur dehydrator with five trays, spread slightly more than 1⅓ cups per tray.

Dehydrated at 135°F (57°C) for approximately twelve hours.

After nine or ten hours, when soup is almost dry, flip sheets over and peel away from soup bark. Finish drying directly on mesh sheets.

Once dry, break soup bark into pieces and grind into powder using a blender or grinder.

Yield: This recipes yields approximately twenty-four tablespoons of soup powder.

Rehydrating Sweet Potatoes & Carrot Soup

Regular Serving: Bring one-and-a-half cups of water to a boil. Stir in six tablespoons of soup powder. (Approximately ten grams per tablespoon). Transfer pot to an insulating cozy and wait fifteen minutes.

Large Serving: Bring two cups of water to a boil. Stir in eight tablespoons of soup powder.

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Books to Help You Dehydrate Better Backpacking Meals

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