Bananas, like apples, are not an inaccessible delicacy. You can buy them at any grocery store, regardless of seasonality. But why then "bother" and engage in their drying? Yes, just dried bananas are a tasty and healthy snack that can be prepared for future use to pamper children with them or to feast on oneself.

Selection and preparation of bananas for drying

Bananas of any size and variety are suitable for drying, the main thing is that they are ripe, and their peel is yellow and without any defects in the form of dark spots and other things.

The whole process of preliminary preparation of the fruit is not complicated and includes the following steps:

  1. Washing the fruit. Despite the fact that the peel will be removed during cooking, the bananas with it must be washed in warm water and dried.
  2. Slicing. Bananas can be dried and whole, but most recipes require their preliminary shredding. Slices should be the same for uniform drying.Often you can meet the advice that for uniform slicing, it is better to chop the fruit together with the peel, and only then remove it.
  3. Soaking in an acidic solution. To prevent the attractive appearance of fruit slices from evaporating with moisture, they are soaked for 30 seconds in a solution of 100 ml of lemon juice and 200 ml of water. Then moisture from the fruits is allowed to drain in a colander, after which they are dried.

During the drying process, fresh fruits lose about a fifth of the water that they contain, so the calorie content of dried bananas is (already!) 345 kcal / 100 g versus 89 kcal in 100 g of fresh tropical fruits.

Oven Dried Bananas

Not every housewife has a special electric dryer for vegetables and fruits, but in every kitchen there is an oven in which you can easily prepare healthy and crunchy banana chips.

A set of ingredients that will be needed in the cooking process:

  • 2 to 3 large bananas;
  • 10 to 20 g of powdered sugar;
  • cinnamon to taste

Step-by-step cooking algorithm:

  1. Peel tropical fruits and chop diagonally with oval platinum of 3-5 mm.
  2. Cover the oven grill with parchment. For better air circulation, baking paper can often be pierced with a thick needle.
  3. Spread banana slices on a prepared grid at a short distance from each other.
  4. Mix a little cinnamon with powdered sugar and sprinkle the chopped banana through the strainer with this mixture. Sugar will help to draw moisture out of the fruit faster.
  5. Place the grate with banana slices in an oven preheated to 50 - 70 degrees and dry for 2-3 hours, leaving the door ajar. If the device has a convection function, then the banana drying will be ready sooner.

Cooking in an electric dryer

A special dryer helps to process a large number of fresh fruits in one go, so you can cook dried or dried bananas in it much faster and with less energy.

To fully boot the device, you will need:

  • 2 - 7 kg of fresh bananas;
  • powdered sugar to taste.

The sequence of actions:

  1. Slice bananas in round slices and place on the pallets of the electric dryer so that they do not touch each other. Otherwise, the slices may stick together into an unappetizing shapeless mass. Sprinkle bananas on top with powdered sugar.
  2. Place the fruit trays on the dryer, close the lid and set the temperature to 65 degrees. The duration of dehydration will be 10 to 14 hours, depending on the desired result.

During the drying process, pallets can be rearranged in order to more evenly evaporate moisture.

Whole Banana Drying Recipe

The taste of dried bananas is affected not only by the amount of evaporated moisture, but also by the way the fruit is sliced. Slices cut along the fibers dry faster, and across - a little longer, acquiring, in the end, a rich, sour-sweet taste. And the fruits, dried whole, by their consistency resemble marshmallows.

It is from them that a delicious dessert of dried bananas in chocolate is prepared, for which you need:

  • 10 to 12 bananas;
  • 200 g of chocolate (white or black);
  • 100 g peanut butter;
  • 100 g crushed nuts (forest, peanuts or hazelnuts).

Working process:

  1. Large peeled bananas cut across into 2 - 3 pieces, small ("baby") fruits to cook whole.
  2. Then lay them on a grid and dry in an oven or electric dryer at 60 - 65 degrees 10 - 12 hours.
  3. Melt the chocolate to a liquid in any way possible. Heat the peanut butter a little in the microwave to make it more fluid.
  4. Dried bananas are planted, like cakepots, on bamboo sticks. Then, one at a time, dip them first in the nut paste, then in the melted chocolate, and finally dump them in the nut crumbs. Quickly put in the freezer.

After the chocolate has hardened, dessert can be served. The bananas inside are as elastic as before the nut-chocolate baths.

In the microwave

In the microwave, banana chips can be cooked in just five minutes. This is much faster than in an oven or dryer, but literally every minute the participation of the hostess will be required in the drying process. The finished treat can be sprinkled with a mixture of icing sugar and cocoa powder.

For one serving of crunchy banana dessert you will need:

  • 2 bananas;
  • 5 ml of odorless refined vegetable oil.

How to make dried bananas in the microwave:

  1. We prepare the fruits in the same way as the previous recipes, and then we lay out the neat banana circles of the same thickness on a greased microwave plate.
  2. We put the plate in the microwave and turn on the device for 1 minute at a power of 750 watts. After the beep, we take out the plate, turn the slices over and cook again for 1 minute. So repeat a total of five times.
  3. Put almost ready-made bananas from a plate onto a wire rack and leave them overnight, so that they dry out a little more at room temperature. Then pour them with cocoa powder and you can eat.

How to Dry Bananas in the Sun

This method of drying fruits has several advantages: it does not require the purchase of an expensive dryer, and the cost of electricity is zero. However, it is available in our latitudes only in the hot season. But if in a hot heat knitting of bananas turned out to be at hand, why not make delicious exotic drying from them?

For her you will need:

  • 1000 - 1500 g bananas;
  • 200 g of honey;
  • 200 g of sugar;
  • 600 ml of water.

Prepare dried bananas in the sun as follows:

  1. Prepare a honey solution, which during dehydration will prevent darkening of the fruit. For him, simply dissolve sugar and honey in hot water.
  2. Dip the bananas, sliced ​​into thin slices, for five minutes in syrup, then drain the excess liquid on a sieve or wire rack.
  3. Cover the tray for drying fruits with parchment, put prepared bananas on it. From above, tighten the tray with gauze so that insects do not sit on the fruits and install glass to enhance the action of sunlight, but leaving a gap for air circulation.
  4. Dry the bananas outdoors for two to four days, depending on solar activity. At night, it is better to clean the pallet in the room so that an unexpected night rain does not spoil all the work. White sugar crust on the surface of the slices will testify to the readiness of drying.

Finished Product Storage

Dried bananas - a product that requires special storage conditions.

They should be stored in airtight containers made of glass or plastic in a dark place (for example, in a cabinet) at room temperature in well-ventilated rooms.

Such storage will not allow the product to moisten and absorb foreign odors. If the bananas are not dried to the state of chips, but remain a little soft and slightly sticky, then so that they do not stick together during storage, they should be sprinkled with powdered sugar or fine sugar.

Depending on the degree of dehydration, bananas can be stored from one month to a year. If the dried slices are soft, but when they are bent, moisture is not released, then such fruits can be stored for several months. If, when trying to bend a dried banana slice, it breaks with a characteristic crunch, then even after a year it will not lose its taste.

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