Freeze dried mandarins

Let’s get this party started!

I’ve read various things about freeze dried mandarins and other citrus. Seems to be very hit or miss. So I figured I’d give it a go and see. I peeled 6 pounds of mandarins, keeping the peels to freeze dry as well. I’m hoping I can powder it like I did with the apple peels and scraps. The apple scraps made absolutely amazing freeze dried apple powder!

All the mandarins and peels were pre-frozen. I started the Ice Queen (Harvest Right Home Pro Medium), and after the 15 minute cool down it does, I put everything in.

I’m really hoping these turn out awesome and I’m able to easily powder the peels! Having a citrus powder I can add to teas and drinks for a kick of vitamin C and antioxidants would be so rad! Plus, citrus peels also have anti-inflammatory properties and some other health benefits that I can’t remember right now, lol.

Welp, I could have done things a bit differently.. lol

So I just put the mandarin slices straight into the freeze dryer, without doing anything special. What I should have done is slice the back of each one open prior to putting them in. That way, they could have more quickly dried. Since I didn’t do that, this took forever! And I did end up having to slice the backs anyway, I just did it after they had been in the thing for over 24 hours. Sigh.. but now I know, haha!

As usual, I put the mandarins (and citrus powder, read about that below) into jars with oxygen absorbers and then vacuum sealed them. I get my oxygen absorbers on Amazon from Wallaby, great value for the price! And this is the Electric Mason Jar Vacuum Sealer I have. The vacuum sealers easily fit in a drawer (I have two lol), which is important for me.

How long did the freeze dried mandarins take?

For freaking EVER since I didn’t slice the pieces first, hahaha! These took a solid 48 hours, if you can believe that! Next time I will slice before putting them in instead of doing it half way through:)

Did the two hour defrost after this batch, it needed it after all that, ha!

Freeze dried citrus powder came out great!

Seriously, I am super super thrilled with this! It could not have com out any better! It’s super potent, which is wonderful – I had hubby just smell it and he was like woah, that’s super citrusy, lol.

To powder it, I just put it in my Nutri Ninja (I actually have this, the
Ninja Blender with Nutri Ninja Cups) and it blended up splendidly! I got three full half pint jars and a bit extra out of it. I did seal the three full jars with oxygen absorbers, but didn’t bother with the little bit extra. I plan to use that soon.

I am really loving how many different things I can turn into powders to use! So much fun!! 🙂

Happy freeze drying!!

Freeze dried mandarins are done! Had to slice the backs of all the pieces.. which I did after more than 24 hours had gone by. I didn’t think about it.. next time I will do the slicing before I even pre-freeze😂 they’re super good though! Powdering the peels also turned out great! pic.twitter.com/i8uYZufWZq

— Buck Hills Farm (@buck_hills_farm) February 6, 2024