I want these freeze dried potatoes to be like French fries, lol.
Not sure they’ll be like fries, but I can still hope
For this, I used white potatoes, didn’t peel them, just cleaned them really well. I chopped them into sticks, a big julienne chopping. I’m hoping they’ll be close to fries, but if they’re like the zucchini and squash sticks I made, I’ll also be happy with that!
I blanched these before pre-freezing them…
After I cut up the potatoes, I blanched them for about 7 minutes or so per batch. Then I put them on freeze dryer trays, sprinkled on a little sea salt, and into the freezer they went. I did pre-freeze these.
All five trays were the potatoes.. so they better be good, ha! After the Ice Queen (Harvest Right Home Pro Medium) did her 15 minute cooldown to start, I started the batch.
![blanching-potatoes potatoes being blanched](https://buckhillsfarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/blanching-potatoes-300x300.jpg)
![potatoes-on-freeze-dryer-tray potatoes on freeze dryer trays](https://buckhillsfarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/potatoes-on-freeze-dryer-tray-300x126.jpg)
Pleasantly surprised by these, they’re good!
The freeze dried potato sticks are not like zucchini and squash. Nor are they exactly like fries, but they are good. These 100000% need something to dip them in. They definitely dry the mouth out as you eat them, lol. But with some dip (ranch, ketchup, etc.), they are awesome!
I put all the freeze dried potato sticks into mylar bags, added an oxygen absorber (I get min on Amazon from Wallaby), and then sealed them up. I did leave some out for us, since they’re good ๐
How long did the freeze dried potato sticks take to finish?
Total time for this was 22 hours and 30 minutes, so not too bad at all!
Quite a bit of ice buildup, so I did the two hour defrost when these were finished.
Happy freeze drying!!
![freeze-dried-potato-sticks freeze dried potato sticks](https://buckhillsfarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/freeze-dried-potato-sticks-300x300.jpg)
Freeze dried potato sticks came out better than I was expecting!! They most definitely need a dip though, they dry out the mouth really fast lol. But I like them, so woohoo for that!!๐๐ pic.twitter.com/NoBbre3UVf
โ Buck Hills Farm (@buck_hills_farm) April 5, 2024