Dehydrated Watermelon In Air Fryer

Dehydrated Watermelon. Let me show you how easy it is to dehydrate watermelon at home using the dehydrator setting on your air fryer.

You will love how easy it is to make dried watermelon in the air fryer and you can use it as a way to preserve in season watermelon and save watermelon jerky for snacking on throughout winter and beyond.

Dehydrated Watermelon

I confess, the first time I ever heard of a watermelon was watching Dirty Dancing and Baby carrying a watermelon.

It was my friends’ mums favourite movie, and she had a thing for Patrick Swayze. I must have watched it with her loads of times and now years later, I am settling down to watch Dirty Dancing with my little girl.

But crazy as it seems, it wasn’t until years after first watching Dirty Dancing that I tried watermelon for the first time.

You see, growing up in England it was never a thing, and it rarely got hot enough for you to want to eat watermelon.

Then living in Portugal and you needed watermelon just to dehydrate yourself during the summer months. You would guarantee throughout June, July, and August that the Milner fridge would include diced watermelon.

Whilst on our last few days living in Portugal, I thought it would be wonderful to do something a little different with it and make dehydrated watermelon.

It could be a snack we could take with us back to England and remind ourselves how much we loved Portuguese watermelon and that it doesn’t just have to be there to recover from the heat in the summer months.

Plus, as well as our free newsletter, we also have a free air fryer mini course. It is ideal for air fryer beginners or those that want to get more confident with their air fryer. The free course runs for 5 days with a new lesson delivered each day to your inbox.

Can You Dehydrate Watermelon?

Yes, you can. Just like numerous other fruits and vegetables, dehydrated watermelon is amazing.

Once dehydrated, dried watermelon becomes a delicious snack that you can save for snacking on and if stored right, will last for months.

Why Dehydrate Watermelon?

You might want to dry watermelon to have as a healthy snack, for when you have too much watermelon and want to avoid food waste, or as something fun to serve at summer barbecues.

For us Milner’s it is to preserve some for winter and also have something different for the kids to snack on.

What Happens When You Dehydrate Watermelon?

When you are dehydrating a watermelon, you are stripping it of its water. Note that watermelon is predominately water and when you make dried watermelon its all about the flavour.

What does dehydrated watermelon taste like? It tastes like fruit chips. The kind you buy in a bag from the supermarket, but thanks to the air fryer you can keep the cost way down. They are also rather sweet in flavour and give you a sweet kick like you get from summer berries.

What does dehydrated watermelon look like? This is the fun bit, I find that dried watermelon looks similar to Dorito chips, but of course, a lot healthier. Though others call it watermelon jerky because of its similarity to beef jerky. In the Milner’s we call it dehydrated watermelon chips.

How To Cut Watermelon Like A Pro?

I photographed my lovely chef husband Dominic as he cut a watermelon, to show you exactly how a pro does it! He mentioned that the easiest and fastest way to start, is to cut a melon is to half, it and then half it again.

Then you have four quarters of your watermelon like this:

Then medium slice each of your quarter like this:

Then you will have watermelon slices like this that are ideal for dehydrating in the air fryer:

Then the next step is to remove the skin from the tops of each slice before loading up onto your dehydrator shelves:

Now you have a watermelon sliced up perfectly ready for dehydrating it in the air fryer.

Dehydrated Watermelon Recipe Ingredients

Air Fryer Oven – I recommend this air fryer oven for dehydrating fruit, and it is fantastic because there are three shelves, and you can do a small batch or a large batch of dried watermelon.

Storage – You need a plan of action of where you plan to keep your dried fruit. You can keep it simple by using them in drinks straight away (yes I do that), use a zip loc bag (I prefer this one) or you can opt for traditional pantry containers (like this one).

Watermelon – You can do as much watermelon or as little watermelon as you like. What I did was a quarter of a whole watermelon, and this filled almost 3 shelves of our air fryer oven. Making it perfect if you have some watermelon spare.

That is, it! You probably think that are complicated ingredients and accessories to dehydrate watermelon in air fryer, but there isn’t. It is also a fantastic easy recipe for air fryer beginners.

How To Dehydrate Watermelon?

• Prep. Slice your watermelon into quarters, then create medium slices with each of your quarter. Then remove the peelings from the watermelon.
• Air Fry. Place your watermelon slices onto the air fryer shelves and make sure they are spread out. Then air fry for 7 hours on 55c/130f.
• Store. Remove from the air fryer and allow to cool before placing into your preferred storage container.

How Long Does It Take To Dehydrate Watermelon?

The recommended watermelon dehydrate time is 7 hours. This allows for all the water to be stripped from the melon and create watermelon fruit chips.

We recommend that you turn your watermelon half way through the cook time to prevent the watermelon from sticking to the air fryer shelves and give an even dehydrate.

What Temperature Do You Dehydrate Watermelon At?

The best temperature for dehydrating watermelon is 55c/130f. You don’t want to go too low because it will take much longer to dehydrate, and the water will not come out as easy.

Yet, you don’t want to go higher than this because you will end up cooking the watermelon rather than dehydrating it.

How To Store Dehydrated Watermelon?

There are two best ways to store watermelon. And one method will have your cherries lasting longer than the other.

You can store your watermelon in an airtight container, in a dark pantry, then they will last at least a year.

You can also store watermelon in a zip loc bag in a warmer pantry, then the shelf life is more likely to be 2-3 months.

What Can You Dehydrate?

There are lots of food you can dehydrate and it’s not just about cherries. In fact, this recipe is number #10 in a summer theme we are running of fruit to dehydrate in the air fryer. The last fruit we featured was dehydrated lemon, the week before it was dehydrated oranges, and we can’t wait to carry on the theme.

As well as these you can also dehydrate most fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers. There is also the option to dehydrate other foods such as marshmallows, potatoes, and beef jerky. Though, those are the dehydrated foods I think of first as there is so much choice.

I recommend that if you are a beginner to dehydrated foods that you start with dehydrated fruit recipes from the berry family.  

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