My freeze dryer is my absolute favorite investment I made in 2022. I’ve been able to freeze dry all sorts of food that would have gone to waste. The butternut squash that’s been sitting in my pantry from our 2022 garden was looking a bit….sad. Being that we are almost in the middle of February it was time to get that last batch of squash preserved or used up. This morning I made a video on how I prepped and freeze dried my squash.
The first thing I did was peel my squash. I then deseeded and put that to the side for my chickens. Now here you can do one of two things. You can cut your squash into cubes and then blanch or pre cook it. I personally don’t find this necessary and I just cube it and throw it on the trays raw.
For my family, I know that we eat our butter squash mainly in casseroles so it will be rehydrated and then cooked.
My Harvest Right Freeze Dryer is one of the newer models, and I am unable to skip the freezing setting like you can on the older models. I do not pre freeze most of my items because my freeze dryer is going to go through that cycle no matter what. I am sure there’s a way around it but I haven’t the energy to figure it out. Once my trays are loaded and my machine is going I let it do it’s censored cycles.
Also, I have my freeze dryer set to dry an additional 12 hours just in case it finishes while I am asleep or out of the house. Most of the time, I allow my items to dry for 10 additional hours of that 12 hour window. I personally want my items to be EXTRA dry. Better safe than sorry in my opinion.
Packaging
When packing up my items I will think about when my family will consume the item. If it’s something like squash where I know we don’t eat it a ton of it I will long term store half the batch and short term store the rest.
Short Term
I use a mix of canning jars and good ole gallon size plastic bags when storing my foods short term. Anything that’s in a canning jar come harvest season is definitely at risk for being moved to a different container. No matter how many jars I have I always need more every season.
Long Term
If I am storing my items for long term I use a mix of mylar and sandwich baggies in mylar. The mylar bags and oxygen absorbers I use mostly are the ones that come from Harvest Right, but I have used some smaller and bigger sizes from Amazon. I then use 27 gallon totes that you can get from Lowes or Walmart for around $15 each to store my mylar bags in. If stored properly your butternut squash cubes will last 25-30 years.
In Closing
I hope you enjoyed todays freeze drying adventure! Be sure to check out How To Preserve Eggs For Long Term. *We must disclose that we are using affiliate links. If you purchase through one of these links we receive some pennies as commission. These pennies go into keeping this blog and our social media outlets alive. We would appreciate if you did purchase through one of the links as it helps us and doesn’t cost you any extra to do so.