freeze dried vegetables Freeze Drying

Freeze dried zucchini & squash sticks

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Being optimistic that freeze dried zucchini and squash sticks will be good 🙂

I’m hoping freeze dried zucchini and summer squash sticks are like veggie straws.

No clue if the zucchini and summer squash will turn out the way I’m thinking. I’m hoping the freeze dried zucchini and summer squash sticks will be nice and crispy, having the texture of those veggie straw things. I looked those up after I had chopped up the squash and zucchini – turns out they’re not very good for us. I honestly thought they were a great alternative to chips, but I guess not. Such a bummer, because I do really like them.

However, if these sticks turn out to be kind of close to veggie straws, I will be thrilled! Then I can just eat these instead of those and be way healthier. Especially since these have zero added ingredients or junk. It was mentioned to me on X (formerly twitter, lol) that maybe I should sprinkle on some seasoning. I hadn’t really thought about it, but that is a fantastic idea! If these turn out how I’m hoping, I will definitely try some seasoning next time 🙂

I didn’t put the zucchini & squash into the Ice Queen freeze dryer raw..

After chopping the zucchini and squash into sticks as similar in size as possible, I blanched them. I blanched about three chopped up zucchini at a time. While one batch was blanching for 5 minutes, I chopped the next batch. It all goes pretty quickly once you get into a nice rhythm. Then it was all put on the freeze dryer trays to cool down before being put into the freezer.

For this batch, I had three trays of the zucchini cut into sticks, and two trays of summer squash, also cut into sticks. After the Ice Queen (Harvest Right Home Pro Medium) did her 15 minute cooldown to start, I started the batch.

zucchini cut into sticks
zucchini cut into sticks
zucchini being blanched
zucchini being blanched
zucchini on freeze dryer tray
zucchini on freeze dryer tray

The freeze dried zucchini and summer squash sticks totally ARE like veggie straws 🙂

I am so incredibly thrilled with how these came out!!! Especially considering how bummed I was when I found out veggie straws aren’t actually good for you, lol. Now I can make my own!! Next time I make these, I think I’ll add some carrot sticks into the mix as well. That would make a bag of these even more awesome!!

I put all the freeze dried zucchini and freeze dried summer squash sticks into mylar bags, added an oxygen absorber (I get min on Amazon from Wallaby), and then sealed them up.

How long did the freeze dried zucchini and freeze dried summer squash take?

Total time for this was 22 hours and 20 minutes, so not too bad at all!

Needed the defrost after this, but it wasn’t a crazy amount of ice buildup, so it’ll probably only need an hour to finish defrosting.

Happy freeze drying!!

freeze dried zucchini and freeze dried summer squash sticks

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