Dehydrator vs. Freeze Dryer for Food Storage

Dehydrator vs. freezer dryer, which is better? Let us help you with your research for the best methods of food preservation. We’d like to walk you through some pros and cons of both dehydrators and freeze dryers, including food lists, nutritional information, shelf life, & more!

Making the goal to store more food for your family is a great thing to do and we want to help you be successful. There are a few things to do before we start considering dehydrator vs. freeze dryer.

When you start preserving your own food, you quickly discover that there are a lot of options, but you only have limited time in the day. You need to prioritize before you invest in a piece of equipment that comes with a higher price tag.

FYI, this article includes a lot of challenges, goal setting, and note-taking. You can use your homestead journal to write things down, but in case you don’t have one yet, feel free to download the FREE workbook customized for this article. Simply join our member newsletter and you’ll get the little workbook with fill-in-the-blank worksheets, as well as lists of printable information and inventory trackers. Storing food doesn’t have to be complicated if you keep it organized!

Before You Preserve: Food Preservation Exercise

Grab your homestead journal and record your answers for the following questions:

Which spring fruits and veggies do we buy?
Which summer fruits and veggies do we buy?
Which fruits and veggies do we buy in fall and winter?

These fruits and veggies will be the ones you want to focus on preserving first. It makes absolutely no sense to learn how to preserve foods you aren’t going to eat and don’t know how to use in meals.

Think about each piece of produce and consider how you’d like to use it once it’s preserved. This will help you determine whether you will more naturally want to can it, dehydrate it, freeze dry it, or even ferment it.

Do you want components for meals to assemble to create dinner every night?
Should you prepare sauces ahead of time and preserve those, or would you like ingredients for sauces?
Would you prefer to have ready made meals to simply rehydrate or dump out from a jar?

There is certainly a place for canning in your yearly food preservation, if you like the “dump from a jar” option! We wrote a book called, Once a Month Canning, to organize the canning year from January through December.

The book includes ripening schedules for fruits and veggies in temperate zones, “off-season” food preservation ideas, as well as recipes that help you know how to use your canned food.

Dehydrator Vs. Freeze Dryer: What Will You Use & How Will You Use It?

These are really important questions to consider before you start preserving food during the year.

What foods do we already eat?
How will we use those foods in their preserved state (dehydrated or freeze dried)?

When I started my food storage program, I learned how to can first. I made so much jam and so many pickles that I had way, way more than we needed.

These items are simple to can and I wanted to practice!

However, I had to figure out how to use so much jam and pickles in recipes so process through them and make room on my shelves. There’s no sense preserving food if we don’t eat it!

When you’re thinking in terms of dehydrator vs. freeze dryer, you’ll need to consider the subtle differences between the finished products. There’s a world of difference between a canned beet and a dehydrated beet.

But between a dehydrated beet and a freeze dried beet? Well, the differences are a little less marked, so consider carefully how you might use a non-canned beet in your cooking throughout the year.

Soup?
Sauteed?
Fermented in kraut?

Think about other items, too. How would you like to use preserved fruit? What about condiments like barbeque sauce?

There are recipes for canning barbeque sauce, but you can also dehydrate or freeze dry the ingredients to mix up barbeque sauce in minutes.
Which do you prefer?

Maybe you’d like the flexibility to have both canned cause and dried ingredients for sauce?

Dehydrator Vs. Freeze Dryer: Shelf Life Considerations

I want to insert a little reminder here that each form of food preservation produces foods that have different “shelf life” lengths.

Shelf life refers to the estimation of time that the preserved food will be safe, palatable, and nutritional. Most recommend shelf life numbers from reputable sources (like the manual that comes with your dehydrator, for example) give you the most generous amount of time they can while still ensuring that your food will both taste good and nourish you.

Edible is not the same thing as palatable – some preserved foods, while not spoiled, simply become too old to taste that good or do much good for your body.

Between dehydrating and freeze drying, freeze dried foods will probably always win out for longest shelf life. They will certainly always win out in a comparison over freshness and nutritional content.

Freeze drying is the optimal food preservation method.

However, many dehydrated foods will last very well for years. The same with canned foods. The key is to know your food because they all have different assumable shelf life lengths.

Sourcing Fruits & Veggies for Preservation

Get your homestead journal (or use the worksheets) out again and answer the following questions:

From where do we buy our fruits and veggies?
Do we want to or can we purchase in bulk?

Buying in bulk saves money but it also means you can schedule your food preservation a little more consistently. If you know you’re going to the farmer’s market on Friday, you won’t schedule a day away from home on Saturday because you know you’ll be processing and preserving a whole box of beets!

Which fruits and veggies do we grow?
Which meats do we grow? What about other sources of protein like eggs and milk?

When you’re harvesting from the garden, the influx of foods coming into your kitchen to be preserved are usually entering in a trickle. This means you can get a little food preservation done every day or every other day, as you can work it in.

There are exceptions to this, of course. Determinate tomatoes usually ripen in large batches all at once, so you can plan their preservation on the calendar because you’ll have a lot to do at once.

Which herbs would we like to preserve?

Herbs are usually preserved in small batches but if you’re planning to use a dehydrator or freeze dryer to dry them, you’ll need to batch them by similar taste. This is because the oils will circulate in the unit and the herbs will take on a faint taste of all the other herbs being preserved.

Batching herbs according to taste requires more planning and coordination.

Keep taking notes in your homestead journal as you think of new ideas and consider each fruit, veggie, morsel of meat, and more.

A Note on Meat

If you are going to dehydrate meat, cook it first to at least 165F/74C in order to kill foodborne pathogens like salmonella.

Crumbled or diced meat is best so there’s more surface area for the removal of water.
It is not recommend that you dehydrate raw meat at home.

The same could be said of freeze dried meat because freeze drying doesn’t actually kill bacteria.

However, I personally choose to freeze dry both raw and cooked meats so that I have options when I go to use the preserved meat.

—>The Most Important Thing: Safe food handling practices.<—

Wash your hands, all utensils, all surfaces, all trays, etc. in hot, soapy water.
Use clean hands to handle meat raw, cooked, and preserved.
Trim all fat from meats to prevent it from going rancid while stored.
Don’t pick your nose or cough into your hands. Be the smart, clean, grown up that you are when handling food.
See that the children you’re teaching to safely preserve food also follow these rules.

Which Foods Shouldn’t Be Dehydrated or Freeze Dried?

This can be a topic of some debate amongst home preservers. It seems there are anecdotes to promote both preserving and not preserving any number of foods.

There are some sources of reputable food preservation information and I suggest you acquire several books on the topic that cover the method with which you’re working.

For example, I have several books on canning, dehydrating, and fermenting foods to expand my food preservation knowledge. These books also help know which foods are safe to preserve with each method.
Another source of help is the manufacturer of your unit. Whichever you purchase, dehydrator or freeze dryer, it will come with an instruction manual that includes a list of foods that they know through recipe testing will work in that unit.
You can also use the Internet to access resources like The National Center for Home Food Preservation.
The Internet also has anecdotal information in the form of articles and blog posts like the one you’re reading now.

A Basic Rule of Thumb

Foods that should not be either dehydrated or freeze dried include:

Highly fatty foods like butter. This is why you should always trim as much fat as possible off any meat your preserve.
Nuts and oils are too fatty to be preserved. You may use a dehydrator to crisp nuts, like peanuts for snacking.
Jams, Jellies, Syrup all have too high a sugar content to dehydrate or freeze dry well.
Chocolate cannot be dehydrated or freeze dried successfully because it is too high in fat. Plus, it melts.
Soda & Alcohol can’t be successfully dehydrated or freeze dried at home.

Specific to Freeze Dryers:

Anything with high sugar but low moisture (like honey and jam) will not freeze dry well.

Results will vary for unique items like candy.

For example, you’ve probably seen pictures of freeze dried candies and some will work really well. The cute novelties you might even be able to sell as a homestead side hustle.
However, not all candies will work – it takes a bit of experimentation to get that freeze dried effect.

Remember, though, that candy is already shelf stable; freeze drying just puffs it up.

You may find some success with cookies in the freeze dryer, though it can vary.

Anything very dense may or may not freeze dry well in the end. ALWAYS check new foods for ice pockets in the finished product.

If you see ice, put it back in the freeze dryer to process longer!

How Does a Dehydrator Work to Preserve Food?

A dehydrator takes raw food and makes it shelf stable through the application of low heat and constant airflow. This process effectively dehydrates, removing enough moisture from food through evaporation to keep the food in a kind of stasis.

The process also inhibits the growth of bacteria, yeast, and mold so the food is safe to eat after storage.
Dehydrating food can take a mere few hours to several days, depending on the food and the temperature of the dehydrator.

Although dehydrating is probably the oldest form of food preservation, it’s not perfect and the foods don’t last forever.

How Does a Freeze Dryer Work to Preserve Food?

Freeze-drying preserves food through a process called sublimation, which describes the change of the water in the food from a solid directly into a gas (without changing to a liquid first).

To freeze dry food, you place the food onto trays and then place those an a shelf inside the unit. Closing the door of the machine seals the chamber initially.
Once the machine kicks into action, a compressor lowers the temperature in the unit rapidly, which freezes the food solid.
Next, the machine turns on the vacuum pump to force air out of the chamber. The heating units apply a small amount of heat to the shelves, causing the ice to change phase.
Since the pressure is so low, the ice turns directly into water vapor. If it turned into water instead of vapor, it would ruin the food and the preservation process.
The water vapor is then removed from the unit at which point you need to do a visual and touch-test to determine if all the ice is indeed gone from your food.

It can take anywhere from 12-36 hours to freeze dry food, with wetter foods taking the longest.

This process is superior to dehydrating in that its effects on the food are far more subtle where flavor and function are concerned. Freeze dried food typically looks and cooks up the same as the day it was preserved!

Dehydrator vs. Freeze Dryer for Cost

Everyone is living on a budget these days, so we need to carefully consider the cost of any investment we make in food preservation. Every method does have a cost associated with it from canning to solar drying to pickling.

When you’re weighing the cost of dehydrator vs. freeze dryer, you’re talking about the difference between several hundred to several thousands of dollars.

Dehydrator Cost

I have an older 9-tray Excalibur food dehydrator that still works as great as the day I bought it over ten years ago. Excalibur is still the brand I recommend for dehydrators because of their excellent service record, warranties, and customer service.

I do recommend that you purchase directly from Excalibur if you want the warranties they offer.

Cosari is also a quality brand.

Currently, for the 10-tray Stainless Steel Model of Excalibur, the features include:

16 square feet of drying space.
10 dishwasher-safe chrome trays.
Adjustable thermostat control with temperature range from 85°F to 165°F.
800 watts of power.

This model is $299.99, but they have sales all the time. The Cosori model that is comparable is the same price.

These newer models improve on my old one in that they’re now made from stainless steel – the less plastic, the better!

Freeze Dryer Cost

Currently, the only mainstream freeze dryer for home use is manufactured by Harvest Rite. There are two basic models to choose from and the difference is which kind of motor they have:

Premier Industrial Pump
Oil-Free Pump (+ $1,495)

I don’t have any experience with the industrial pump because we ordered the oil-free so that the system was completely closed and I wouldn’t have to change out oil between groups of batches.

The Home Pro Freeze Dryer comes in four sizes, and the smallest one has the following features:

Tray space: 434 square inches (Freeze dry 6 to 10 lbs. fresh food per batch).
Freeze dryer exterior dimensions: 17.4″ W x 21.5″ D x 26.8″ H.
Oil-free vacuum pump.
Stainless steel trays (set of 4).
Mylar bags (50 ct).
Oxygen absorbers (50 ct).
Impulse sealer for vacuum sealing.
Power: 110 volt outlet. (If you purchase the large model, you’ll also need a dedicated 20 amp circuit.)
Three year limited warranty.

This unit runs around $4,000, including the oil free pump (which is $1,500 extra).

Dehydrator vs. Freeze Dryer for Space & Cleaning

Dehydrators vary in size according to brand and model, but my 9-tray (current model would be 10-tray) is about 16 cubic fee.

However, my freeze dryer’s exterior dimensions are 21.3″ W x 27.5″ D x 31.3″ H. Then there’s also the pump and the vacuum sealer for the mylar food storage bags.

Hands down, the freeze dryer takes up more space than my dehydrator!

Also, the freeze dryer (especially with the motor) are much heavier than my dehydrator. The small freeze dryer in around 91 lbs., but my larger model is about 140 lbs.!

This becomes an issue when I need to clean under and around it.

You’ll want to clean around the back of the dehydrator every now and then, as well as underneath it. A wide counter will do for a dehydrator, but you’ll probably want a sturdy cart or table for a freeze dryer and its motor.
You need to periodically check hose connections, access both the front and the back of the unit, and dust the motor. We decided to put ours on a stainless steel table with wheels that lock. This enables us to move it around when we need to without lifting it or risk damaging it while moving it.

Dehydrator vs. Freeze Dryer for Ease of Use

It’s true will all machines: the fancier they are, the more complicated they are to operate.

A freeze dryer has a separate motor, tubing, a finnicky door seal, more complicated software, and an exterior valve. These are all things that can break or require updating (especially software updates!).

A dehydrator is less complicated; it’s basically a box with doors that plugs into the wall. The new models do have digital interfaces now (my old one was just a knob), but the programing is significantly less complex.

You can learn to use either or both because you’re very smart, but the learning curve with the freeze dryer is bigger and can take longer.

I share a few of my initial struggles with my freeze dryer in our article: The Best Foods to Freeze Dry.

Dehydrator vs. Freeze Dryer for Longevity of Foods

Hands down, freeze dried foods will last longer and retain both flavor and nutritional content longer than dehydrated foods.

However, there are some dehydrated foods that will last for years, if properly stored.

In my family, when we preserve fresh foods for our food storage program, we generally assume we’ll use those products within one to two years. There are some exceptions, but this goal helps us remember to rotate through our food storage.

Rotational eating of home stored foods keeps your stores fresh and relevant! Children, especially, often change what they like to eat, so rotation ensures that I always have food on hand that makes the family happy.

FAQs Dehydrator vs. Freeze Dryer

There are myriad questions the discerning shopper and food preservationist might ask before purchasing either a dehydrator or a freeze dryer. The following are just a few, but if you think of other, please feel free to leave a comment and ask!

What are the Main Disadvantages of Freeze Drying?

The main disadvantages of freeze drying (in my opinion) are:

The units are very expensive.
Freeze dryers are also larger, louder, and can take more energy to run than a dehydrator.
They are also much more complicated than a dehydrator and, therefore, more things can break or go wrong.
Some foods don’t really translate as well to freeze drying as opposed to dehydrating (like onions). Although, this is really relative and even if the texture is a little weird, freeze dried onions (for example) are still usable and adaptable in recipes.
High sugar, low water foods just won’t freeze dry well.

An example of that is grapes. I’ve read accounts of people successfully freeze drying grapes but I had no luck with it. I think the reasons for this might have been:

I was using fresh, ripe red grapes with a high sugar content.
It’s possible those success stories came from store bought grapes, which are typically not picked at the height of sweetness so they’re still firm for shipping.

Whatever the reason, my grapes ended up dry but super sticky and messy. It looked like the grapes had melted in shame. Bleh.

I’ll stick with dehydrating fresh grapes and making delicious raisins.

What Are the Disadvantages of Dehydrating Food?

Dehydrators are smaller and cheaper than freeze dryers, but they also have some drawbacks:
Dehydrators are loud, though not as loud as freeze dryers!
The texture and flavor of dehydrated foods are consider less desirable than freeze dried foods.
The retained nutrition of dehydrated foods is less than freeze dried foods.

What Meals Can You Dehydrate?

If you’re a big camper or backpacker, you’ll love the space and weight savings that both dehydrated and freeze dried food can offer you! Packing around raw food is a drag; both these preserved foods are so light!

You can also preserve meals with both a dehydrator and a freeze dryer, which makes meals on the go or meal preparation for busy families even easier. You do this a little differently with a dehydrator vs. freeze dryer.

For a dehydrator, it’s recommended that you dehydrate meal components. Then, you can mix and match them as you need for a recipe.

For example, if you want to make this nice hashbrown breakfast casserole from Purposeful Pantry, dehydrate:

Hashbrowns
Veggies

to them combine them with eggs and sausage, as Darcy recommends.

If you decide to dehydrate eggs and sausage, cook them first to 160F/71C. You’ll notice that Darcy doesn’t recommend you dehydrate either eggs or meat at home.

If you need more ideas, here are 100+ Dehydrator Recipes from Practical Self Reliance.

Freeze Dried Meals

For a freeze dryer, you can preserve casseroles, leftovers, whatever as long as the components don’t stand taller than your tray.

Harvest Right show you how to freeze dry meals easily.

What Fruits and Veggies are Best for Dehydrators?

We have two articles here at Homestead Lady, we have two articles that can help answer that question:

Best Foods to Dehydrate

Best Foods to Freeze Dry

Here’s a quick list of my favorites for your consideration.

My preferences for dehydrated foods:

Onions
Jerky
Raisins
Fruit Leather
Prunes
Hash Browns – good but freeze dried is great, too
Veggie Chips – texture better than freeze dried

Dehydrators are great for cost, ease of use, and they’re much quieter. Some things are just simply better dehydrated.

Also, can culture sourdough, yogurt, and slowly dry seeds in the dehydrator.

My preferences for freeze dried foods:

Apples
Avocados – these are fatty, so eat within a few months or store in fridge
Hash Browns – great texture
Milk
Eggs & Cheese (sour cream, cottage cheese, paneer, block cheese sliced thin, too)
Salad Topping
Leftover Meals
Meat
Radish, Beets, Rutabaga – flavor, color, and texture better BUT dehydrated is certainly usable
Veggie Chips – flavor better, but dehydrated has better texture
Ice Cream

Freeze dried products are great for shelf life, nutrient retention, powdering, as well as reconstituting back to original form and flavor.

Foods that are about the same:

Pumpkin (winter and summer squash) have different textures but both are fine. Use freeze dried if you need fine powder for natural food dyes or adding to subtle recipes.
Nightshades like Tomatoes, Peppers, Eggplant
Greens
Herbs

Which is Healthier, Freeze-Dried or Dehydrated?

Here’s what Harvest Right has to say about the health of freeze dried foods:

Unlike canning and other ways of preserving food, freeze drying causes very little damage to the nutritional value of your food. Freeze-dried foods retain nearly all of the nutrients.

A home freeze dryer can help you make sure you always have access to fresh, tasty food that works with your dietary considerations. Freeze-dried food is perfect for those who eat gluten-free, raw food, vegan, vegetarian, paleo, or suffer from food allergies.

The average American family wastes a lot of food. A recent study by the USDA found that the average American wastes about one pound of food per day, which can cost the average family up to $2,400 per year. Preserve the healthy food you buy or grow with a home freeze dryer and save money by eliminating waste.

It’s estimated that nearly all of the nutrition is preserved in freeze dried foods. Whereas dehydrated foods retain only about 60%, and canned foods around 40%, according to Harvest Rite.

Healthy Canning has a slightly different take and her article Just How Nutritious Are Home Canned Foods is worth a read.

Bottomline, home preserved foods are waaaaaaaaaaaaaay healthier than store-bought, commercially produced, sugar-riden, chemical-laden, junk foods.

Just sayin’.

Why Freeze-Dry Instead of Dehydrate?

Freeze dried foods retain more nutrition than dehydrated foods, simply because of the chemistry involved in how the food is preserved.

It should be remembered that both home dehydrated and freeze dried foods are a lot healthier than commercially produced packaged snacks!
Also, if you’ve grown the fruits and veggies yourself, you know exactly what went into their production. If you don’t want to use herbicides and pesticides, you know that your food will be toxin-free.

Another reason to use a freeze dryer vs a dehydrator is that freeze dried foods tend to have a longer shelf life.

Also, freeze dried foods reconstitute back to very nearly their original form before preservation. This is rarely true with dehydrated foods.

Though dehydrated foods reconstitute well, you can usually tell in the texture and sometimes in the flavor that something is different from its original form.

Can Bacteria Grow on Freeze Dried Food?

Yes, freeze dried foods can grow bacteria just like any other food once rehydrated. Always use safe food handling practices like washing with hot, soapy water.

Also, you may want to pre-cook all meats before freeze drying them.

The good news is that bacteria like botulism can’t grow in freeze dried food if it’s been properly dried because those bacteria require water to live.

Packaged and seal your foods in air-tight

Keep your freeze dried and dehydrated foods in air-tight, food safe containers away from direct light and heat. A cook, dark place is always best!

Once you open your home-preserved food, be careful not to expose it to light, heat, and especially moisture. Oxygen absorbers can help to extend the shelf life of your packaged foods.

Once you open the food, use it up as quickly as possible since each time you open the packaging, air and humidity enter it.