Dehydrated Potatoes

I had my doubts about these potatoes.  Especially when I opened the bag and saw that one of them was starting to sprout. Since I wasn't in the mood to eat 6 potatoes by myself, I knew they would just go bad without preserving them. The only experience I've had with dehydrated potatoes is with Betty-Crocker-type scalloped potatoes which always leaves you wishing you would have just used real potatoes.

Plus, I was concerned that they would be a discolored grayish brown after being exposed to the air for 8 hours. As you can see these small yellow potatoes stayed golden. But it was a process.

Here is what I had to do to retain the color:

1) Grate the potatoes into a bowl of cold water.
2) Rinse all the starch out, until the water runs clear.
3) Place the potatoes in a boiling pot and blanch for 5 minutes.
4) Once blanched, immediately place into a bowl of cold water and 1/2 cup of lemon juice (I had grated about 6 small potatoes) and let soak for 45 minutes.
5) Drain well and spread shredded potatoes out in dehydrator. You don't need one of those add-on trays, you can just cut a piece of parchment paper to fit.

I dehydrated these for about 5 hours since they were shredded it didn't take very long. The small potatoes only used 2 trays of my dehydrator. I could probably do a full 10lb bag in my machine.

I've already used these and they were FANTASTIC. It's really easy to rehydrate them with hot water. I used the rehydrated potatoes with milk, butter, cheese, and the dried mushroom mix I made earlier. I think the potatoes were so good, they would be perfectly fine as hash browns on their own.

Do yourself a favor, next time there is a sale on potatoes, stock up and get to dehydrating.