Raw Vegetable Leather Recipe

These days, both frequently include an edible leather: a puree of fruit (or, in the case of the restaurant, more often of a vegetable, such as tomato or onion) spread thin and dehydrated until it becomes stretchy.

Commercial fruit leathers roll out of factories by the yard, and those served at high-priced restaurants are prepared by expert chefs, so you might think that such a modern creation is beyond the means of the home cook. But it’s actually amazingly quick and easy to make an all-natural fruit leather that is a tasty, healthful and highly portable snack for the lunch box or backpack.

And you can use the same technique to create savory vegetable leathers that add interesting, modern touches to traditional dishes. For example, I put tomato leather on lobster rolls. A little tangle of thin onion leather strips makes a terrific garnish for gazpacho or vichyssoise. Apple leather pairs nicely with squash soup.

Winter Squash

All you need to make your own leather is a blender, an oven and about 20 minutes of prep time. Edible leathers do need one to three hours to dehydrate - the thicker the layer of puree, the longer it takes to dry - but you can do other things while they sit in the oven. For these recipes, timing is not critical.

There are just three prep steps: prepare the fruit or vegetable by coring, peeling and dicing it; puree all the ingredients in a blender to a smooth slurry; then spread the puree in a thin, even layer onto a silicone baking mat. An offset spatula is an ideal tool for that last step.

Except for leathers made from fruits, like mango, which are naturally high in pectin, you’ll need to add a smidgen of gelling agent to the puree to get the right degree of stretchiness to the leather. Pectin can work, but its gelling strength varies greatly depending on the acidity of the puree. Xanthan gum, which you can find in the baking ingredients aisle of bigger grocers, performs more consistently. Xanthan is a natural product fermented from sugars. It is powerful stuff, so measure it carefully; use a digital scale if you have one.

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Arrange an 11-by-17-inch nonstick silicone mat on a rimmed baking sheet. Heat a food dehydrator to 150 F, or set your oven to its lowest temperature.

Combine all ingredients in a blender, then puree until thoroughly blended, at least 30 seconds. Working quickly, pour the puree onto the mat and use an offset spatula or other long, flat utensil to spread it into an even layer 1/16 inch thick. If the puree sits too long in the blender it may set into a custard-like gel; if that happens, blend it again until it becomes fluid enough that you can spread it easily across the mat.

Place the baking sheet in the dehydrator or oven, and dry until leathery and tacky to the touch. A drying time of 1 1/2 to 2 hours is typical, but the time required can vary considerably depending on the thickness and wetness of the puree layer, the temperature of the chamber, and the humidity of the air. Use the convection setting on your oven if one is available.

Vegetable Tanned Leather

When the leather is done, peel it gently from the mat, and use scissors to trim it to individual serving sizes. For use as a garnish, cut it into long, thin strips. To store the leather pieces, roll them individually in waxed paper and then in plastic wrap. The leather will keep for a week when packaged this way.Explore this Backpacking Chef collection of healthy and delicious fruit combinations that you can blend and dehydrate into amazing fruit leather snacks and smoothies.

Learn how to make fruit leather, how to store and pack it for home and trail, and how to turn fruit leathers into fruit puddings and smoothies with hot or cold water.

Photo: Banana split pudding made by rehydrating banana-pineapple fruit leather with cold water. Garnish with chopped nuts, shredded coconut, and chocolate shavings.

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Apple, apricot, banana, blackberry, blueberry, cherry, cranberry, grapefruit, grape, kiwi, lemon, nectarine, orange, peach, pear, persimmon, pineapple, plum, pumpkin, raspberry, rhubarb, strawberry, and watermelon.

There is no rule that says you can’t add a vegetable like carrot, beet, or sweet potato to your fruit leather recipe. You will want to cook root vegetables first to soften them up, although you could use raw grated carrots. This might be a chance to use up some of those cucumbers from the garden, too.

Wash fruit and remove cores or large seeds. You can leave the skins on fruits like pears and apples since they contain healthy nutrients, but peel if you prefer. Discard any portions of fruit that appear dark or bruised. If you see signs of mold, which is common in strawberries, don’t use them.

Fruit Leather Recipe (homemade Fruit Roll Ups)

If necessary, add 1–3 tablespoons of fruit juice to make it easier for the blender to blend the fruit to a smoothie-like consistency.

Watermelon and strawberries are 92% water, so if you make fruit leather with either of those, you would not need to add additional fruit juice. When making fruit leather with strawberries or watermelon, you may want to add a banana, which is 74% water, to thicken the mix. Apples and cherries are also good for thickening fruit leather.

Fruit is already sweet, so go easy on extra sweeteners, or just leave them out. Instead of sugar, try adding a teaspoon of honey, maple syrup, or fruit preserves.

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Fruit juices help to blend fruits into perfect smoothie-like consistencies. Try adding 1–3 tablespoons of apple juice, cranberry juice, lemon juice, grape juice, orange juice, or pineapple juice to 3 cups of diced fruit (approx. 500 g) before running the mix through a blender. Go easy on lemon juice as it will add tartness to fruit leather. Grape, orange, and pineapple juice can make fruit leather stickier, but this is not a problem as long as you are dehydrating fruit leather on nonstick sheets.

For protein, try adding yogurt in a ratio of 1 part yogurt to 3 parts fruit. Dairy products can spoil, so store fruit leather containing yogurt in the refrigerator and eat it the first day out on a hike.

Try shredded coconut, chopped nuts, seeds, or granola. Sprinkle garnish on top of the mixture after you spread it on the dehydrator tray. Coconut, nuts, and seeds may shorten the shelf life of fruit leather since they include fats that could go rancid. Store in an airtight container.

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Spread thinly, about ⅛ inch thick on dehydrator trays covered with nonstick sheets or parchment paper. Don’t use waxed paper—the wax melts.

Dehydrate fruit leather at 135° F (57° C). Drying times usually fall in the 6–12 hour range, depending on the juiciness of your fruit leather recipe.

After 6 hours or so, the leather may be dry enough to peel off the nonstick sheets and place directly on the mesh trays. This speeds up the drying by exposing the bottom side of the leather to hot air, which circulates better inside the dehydrator after nonstick sheets are removed.

Try Your Hand At Making Edible Leather

Leather will be pliable when done. Be sure to check spots where the mixture may have been spread thicker to make sure there is no moisture.

Because fruit leather can be sticky, fold or roll it up in parchment paper or plastic wrap. This is especially important when vacuum sealing leather with other backpacking food rations. The pressure of vacuum sealing causes fruit leather to stick to itself, and it's very difficult to pull apart pieces of fruit leather that are stuck together.

My preferred method of packing fruit leather is to fold it in parchment paper. It forms creases at the folds, which makes it easy to tear off sections to eat while you’re hiking down the trail. One sheet of fruit leather folded up in parchment paper fits neatly into the pocket of a hiking shirt or hip belt. Several folded sheets of fruit leather can be packed in 1 Ziploc sandwich bag and vacuum-sealed with other dehydrated food rations. Once the fruit leather is eaten, the parchment paper can be used as a sanitary surface to prepare your evening trail meal.

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The photo above shows how to fold fruit leather with parchment paper. Place the fruit leather on the parchment paper, leaving an empty column of paper 3 inches wide on 1 side. Fold the paper over the leather, and continue folding in this manner. Once you have folded the leather 4 times, fold it in half the other way. This neat little package is now ready for vacuum sealing in with your daily rations for a backpacking trip.

The most important thing to get right about fruit leather storage is to make sure it is sufficiently dry. It should be in the range of pliable to not-quite-brittle. If it cracks, it might be a bit over-dried, but it will still taste good. If fruit leather is not sufficiently dry, it could grow mold.

Wrap up and store fruit leather as soon as it is dry and cool. If you let it sit out, it will absorb moisture from

Persimmon And Strawberry Fruit Leather