How To Freeze Dry Holiday Dips
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How Do I Freeze Dry Dip Mixes
Have you ever wondered how to freeze dry dip mixes?
At our house we have a lot of traditions. As our kids were growing up and we did something more than once, and they liked it, it somehow became a tradition! Holidays are big for things like that. The family gets used to having the same special treats and if they aren’t there, someone will definitely notice and say something like, “Isn’t that a tradition?”
I started making a blueberry cheesecake many years ago. The recipe actually started out as a cherry cheesecake, but I tweaked it several times over the years. I added blueberries because we began growing them in our garden and I changed the crust mainly because a son-in-law was allergic to walnuts and I liked a lighter pie-like crust. It always went over well so I started making it for Thanksgiving. Then it got to where I only made it for Thanksgiving–that way it was more special. It’s something they all look forward to on that Holiday.
Isn’t it interesting that special holidays are most often made “special” by the foods we serve. For Christmas we all have our favorite treats: the decorated cookies, special holiday drinks and snacks.
Can You Freeze Dry Homemade Dips
One thing that isn’t a big highlight, but it’s always there supporting everything else during each holidays and actually most any party—the dips! Our family is big on DIPPING, whether it’s chips or veggies or ?
I thought as I’m preparing foods in my Harvest Right freeze dryer that a few holiday treats (TRADITIONS!) would be important to my family in an emergency situation, so I decided to experiment a bit to see what will work, freeze dry and reconstitute well.
Can You Freeze Dry Onion Dip
For many years we always made the onion dip made with Lipton’s Onion Soup Mix. Yep, that became a tradition and I always have some made up, to snack on with chips before the Turkey dinner is served.
Here’s the recipe that has never changed in a LOT of years! I’ve never added the mayonnaise it mentions at the bottom (actually, that might be something they added later) and I probably wouldn’t add it, in order to make sure it freeze dries well. Mayo has a lot of oil in it and fats don’t freeze dry. so give the mayo a try if you want, but not if you’re freeze drying it.
How Do I Prepare A Dip To Freeze Dry
Dips are so simple to make–only two ingredients for this one. I usually have my husband or a child stir this one up. With husbands you usually have to hide the chips or you won’t have any dip left for the party!
I slice a 48 oz. tub of sour cream in half to use with one packet of soup mix to stir up enough for one tray at a time. It’s a bit more sour cream than the recipe calls for, but I’d do that to make it goes a little further for a large family and it seems to be just as good.
Here we are, smoothing it on the trays, ready to freeze for a full 24 hours before placing in the Harvest Right freeze dryer. Don’t use your silicone mats for this particular item. It’s easier to scrape out of the trays without lining it.
It took just under 25 hours to finish. You can see where I touched it to make sure it was completely dry.
It slides right out of the tray and powders very easily with your potato masher pretty much like sour cream alone does.
I wanted to see how it rehydrated, so I added just a little water at a time while stirring. It was a nice creamy consistency and if refrigerated, I think it would be identical to what you have before freeze drying it. It tasted great–just like fresh!
Each tray filled a quart Mylar bag. I’m glad I have this put away for future use. It was pretty quick and easy and I’ll do more!
Can I Freeze Dry Ro-Tel Velveeta Dip
Another favorite I wanted to try freeze drying is the Ro*Tel Queso Dip made with Velveeta cheese
and Ro*Tel Original Diced Tomatoes and Green Chilies. Years ago the recipe I used said to mix a 2 lb. Velveeta to a 10 oz. can of Ro*Tel in the microwave, so that’s how we’ve always made it. I’m now seeing recipes that say to mix a 10 oz. can of Ro*Tel with a 1 lb. block of Velveeta. I think the two companies must have settled on what must work best for the majority!
My family likes it cheesy! The taste is still very good using the 2 pound Velveeta, it just wouldn’t be as runny. You serve it warm regardless, but you may want to experiment to get the taste and consistency you want before deciding to freeze dry it.
First, chop the cheese into cubes to microwave. Pour in the Ro*Tel, liquid and all.
After 3 minutes on high, give it a good stir. Then, after each minute stir until melted, creamy and well mixed.
Smooth each batch into your tray –don’t use silicone mats for this one either. Now freeze it for a full 24 hours to avoid any mess in your freeze dryer.
It completes freeze drying at just a little more than 24 hours. This particular dip freeze dries quite hard, so I chopped it into large chunks to blend in my Vita Mix.
It powdered beautifully! It would have been a chore to try and powder it any other way. Doing it in a blender mixes the spices more thoroughly as well.
Can I Reconstitute Freeze Dried Dip
It tastes amazing! My first thought was that it would make a great soup by adding some freeze dried potato chunks, broccoli florets, celery, chicken bouillon (maybe even some freeze dried rotisserie chicken), and perhaps reconstituting it with milk.
I wanted to try other dips, but I’m afraid they would be difficult to freeze dry because most have a lot of mayonnaise in them. But, there is a fun variation of this last dip (a Mexican Dip) that a dear friend of mine makes. My husband can’t get enough of it– I’ll share it with you in the vault! I hope you’ll try it more than once… and maybe have a new tradition for your family!
HOW DO I FREEZE DRY DIPS?
Many people think it’s next to impossible to do the freeze drying for themselves. This is far from factual. Freeze drying at home is made easy by Harvest Right. They sell three different sizes of freeze-drying machines that do everything in the machine – except prep and package.
That’s up to you.
For all intents and purposes, here at Freeze Drying Mama we use the medium sized freeze dryer. You can check out the sizes offered at Harvest Right here.
What this machine does is first freeze the items on stainless steel trays to -41 degrees or lower. This takes about 10 hours or so.
Then a vacuum pump turns on and creates a vacuum inside the drum. This is the drying stage and will vacillate the heat of the tray up and down to a pretty warm temperature. This makes the frozen items release any water in them in vapor form. The vacuum sucks the moisture to the drum. This collects in ice form on the inner circle of the drum.
Then there’s the final dry which is essentially the same thing, but with a time associated with it and an end in sight!
WHAT SETTINGS DO I USE TO FREEZE DRY DIPS?
On the Harvest Right freeze drier – this works on all sizes – after putting the trays inside the drum on the shelves, I put in the drum cover and then tighten the handle as I lock it shut. On the computer touch screen, I selected START > LIQUID > FROZEN > CONTINUE. After inputting the settings and making sure my drain tube was closed, I walked away.
