If you have an oversupply of fresh lemons like I now do after I discovered the secret fertiliser ingredient to promote fruiting, and you have a food dehydrator, why not consider making your own lemon powder? It’s a great way to use up your oversupply and the powder can be used to flavour all sorts of dishes and to replace fresh lemon zest in many of your favorite recipes.
On a recent cold and wet Sunday, I decided to give this a try and was surprised at how easy it actually was and how little time it took. I’m going to share the process with you so that you can give it a go too.
What You’ll Need To Gather
All you’re going to need to make lemon powder are the following three things.
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- Some fresh organic lemons from your tree
- A vegetable peeler
- Your food dehydrator
Step-By-Step Easy Method For Making Dehydrated Lemon Powder
Step 1
Before we begin, let me just say that it doesn’t matter which type of lemons you use as long as they are whole lemons. The size doesn’t matter either because you can make lemon powder from regular lemons, medium-sized lemons, small lemons or even really large lemons.
Wash the lemons to remove any dirt from the skins. Let them dry naturally or wipe them dry with a clean tea towel to speed up the process. Having the lemons at room temperature makes them easier to peel.
Step 2
Using your vegetable peeler, peel the skin off each lemon. My lemons have a particularly thick skin and white pith (I think they must be Meyer lemons) so I found it was easier just to peel them with the peeler. Plus, this allowed me to keep the lemons whole for juicing later on.
Step 3
Arrange the citrus peels on the food dehydrator trays in a single layer. I usually like to ensure that foods are not touching when I put them in my dehydrator. I also didn’t line the trays with parchment paper because I didn’t think the lemon rinds would stick (which they didn’t).
Step 4
Put the trays back into your dehydrator and set the temperature and time. I used the highest temperature setting on my unit which is 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit) and set the timer to 6 hours. In hindsight, I could have set it for a bit longer because some of the dry lemon peels weren’t as crispy as they could have been.
Step 5
After the citrus fruit peels are perfectly dry and crisp you can grind the dried lemon peels into a fine powder. I just used my coffee grinder after giving it a good wash. If you don’t have a coffee grinder, you can just use a spice grinder, if you have one of those.
It worked extremely well although I did have to give some of the peels a second go because they weren’t quite crisp enough.
Once all the dried peels had been ground into a powder, I just put this into an airtight glass jar. Then I labelled the jar and put it in the cupboard. You can use any type of clean glass jar for this that has an airtight lid. Mason jars work very well for dehydrated goods but I just used a small clean jar that I had on hand.
That’s how perfectly easy it is to make homemade lemon powder when you have a lot of lemons. Just be prepared that you’ll only end up with quite a small portion of highly concentrated lemon powder. You can easily use this in any recipe that calls for citrus zest.
What About The Remaining Parts Of The Lemons?
I was now left with a whole bunch of lemons with no skins on them. There was an easy solution for what to do with these. I took my little electric juicer out of the cupboard and gathered some ice cube trays that I had previously washed.
I cut each of the lemons in half and proceeded to get all the juice out of them, one by one. Then, I poured the lemon juice into the ice cube trays and filled almost five of them.
The filled trays were then placed into the freezer and left there overnight. Actually, I think I left them for a couple of days before I got around to removing them from the trays. The frozen ice cubes were easy to remove from the trays. I just put them into an airtight container which I popped back in the freezer.
Now, when a recipe, such as one for salad dressing, calls for some freshly squeezed lemon juice, all I have to do is grab an ice cube or two from the freezer.
The empty lemon ‘shells’ I just threw in my green bin. If I’d had the time and forethought, I could have filled them with potting mix and used them for planting seeds. Once the seeds had grown enough to be planted in the garden, they could be planted complete with the ‘lemon pots’. These would eventually break down in the soil.
Frequently Asked Questions
Absolutely! You can easily dry the lemon peels in the oven at a very low temperature. Just arrange the lemon peels on a baking sheet or cookie sheet and put them into the oven. Make sure to keep an eye on them though so that they don’t burn.
Of course! Just follow this method with any citrus fruits that you might have in abundance such as oranges and limes. Lime powder would make an excellent ingredient in your seasoning blends for Asian food dishes.
Final Thoughts
Making your own lemon powder to use up an overabundance of lemons is really easy. If you have your own food dehydrator it takes very little time. It’s a good idea when you just don’t know what to do with all those lemons that are ripening on your tree. You can then use the lemon powder, which is high in Vitamin C to boost your immune system, in your cooking. You can add it to your favourite recipes that call for lemon zest or lemon rind. One teaspoon of lemon powder is all you’ll need to impart a burst of lemon flavour to your favourite dishes.
The whole process is quick and easy. Making your own lemon peel powder means that you’ll never have to buy store-bought lemon seasoning or dehydrated citrus powder ever again.
It’s just one more way that you can save money on your grocery bill by utilising all the fresh produce that you can grow in your own garden. Even if you don’t have a large yard, you can still grow a lemon tree in a pot. This should give enough fruit for your needs.
