Dehydrating figs in a dehydrator is easy and preserves them for a naturally sweet treat any time of year! In just a few easy steps, you can dry them and store for later.
If you’ve ever fresh juicy fig juice drip down your chin, you’re most likely as obsessed with figs as I am. While you can’t preserve the juiciness, when you make dehydrated figs, they dry up into sugary little morsels that are the perfect toppers for oatmeal, ice cream, yogurt, mixed into my beet fig salad or just munching on plain – you name it. So good!
I have two fig trees that product an absolutely wild amount of figs each year. More than we can eat or give away! They’re Adriatic green figs with gorgeous pink interiors that taste like brown sugar and are downright dreamy. So we’ve started drying them to preserve that tasty fig flavor all year round. Needless to say, I have LOTS of experience dehydrating figs.
The tools are pretty basic too. I use a basic food dehydrator and it works great! No need for anything fancy. If you love figs like we do and find yourself with more than you can eat, you’re in the right place.
How to Dehydrate Figs
Drying figs is easy as can be, especially if you’re using green figs and can skip the blanching, but even that only adds 2 extra pots and 10 minutes. Here’s how you dry figs:
- Wash figs. If your figs are brown with thicker skin, you may need to blanch them and then do an ice bath. You can skip this for green or white figs!
- Trim the figs into equal sizes (we normally halve them).
- Lay the figs in the dehydrator and dehydrate at 135° F (60° C) for 6-8 hours.
- Let the figs cool for an hour or two before putting away for storage.
See, easy as can be!
Tips for Dehydrating Figs
- Drying time depends on moisture content and size. Check early to be sure!
- Use ripe figs. If your figs are underripe, I’d recommend just leaving them out, spaced apart on a rack on the counter to ripen before drying. This will make them sweeter. That being said, you don’t want them to be overripe and mushy! Those figs are better for fig jam.
- To blanch or not blanch the figs? You don’t need to blanch the figs unless they have very thick skin which is usually found on darker brown skin fig varieties.
Storage
Properly dehydrated figs will last for up to 6 months in dark space (cupboard, pantry, etc.) in a tightly sealed glass mason jar. To extend storage, we keep our dried figs in glass mason jars with a oxygen absorber added. I use a 400cc oxygen absorber and our figs last for 1-2 years. Any food safe oxygen absorber over 100cc should work fine. Please note that these storage times are for halved or quartered figs, whole figs do not keep nearly as long.
It is not our preferred method, but you can also freeze dried figs in vacuum sealed bags to extend storage time even further.
Dehydrating Figs: How to Dry Figs in a Dehydrator
Equipment
- Large canning jars or any glass storage container
- Oxygen obsorbers optional
Ingredients
- 1.5 lbs. Figs brown figs usually require blanching (step 2) and green do not
Instructions
- Gently wash figs in cold water.
- OPTIONAL (see notes): Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Blanch figs in boiling water for 30 seconds and then gently place in an ice bath to cool for 2-3 minutes.
- Trim the stem off of the end and cut each fig into halves or quarters. If you have really small figs, you can leave them whole but I don't recommend it. Pieces should all be roughly the same size.
- Arrange the figs in the dehydrator trays spaced to allow air flow between them.
- Set dehydrator to 135° F (60° C) and dry figs for 6-8 hours for quartered figs, 8- hours for halved, and 12+ hours for whole. Dry time can vary based on size and how ripe and juicy the figs are. When done, figs should be firm but dry and not overly sticky.
- Let the figs cool for an hour or two before placing in jars for storage. I remove and separate the drying trays and use them as cooling racks but move each fig a little bit to prevent them from sticking to the tray while they cool. They will become less sticky and more leathery as they sit.
- Store in a sealed glass jar in a cool dark place. See notes for more details on storage.
Notes
Nutrition
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