How to Dehydrate Canned Pumpkin Puree and make Pumpkin Powder

One food I love and hoard stockpile stock in my pantry is canned pumpkin puree. The problem is, no matter how much I bake, make pumpkin granola, make pumpkin smoothies, make pumpkin pancakes and everything else pumpkin I do, I tend to hoard, stockpile, stock more pumpkin than I use in a season. Swimming in canned pumpkin or freezer bags full of pumpkin puree? Here's how to dehydrate your canned pumpkin puree and make pumpkin powder!

Add on top of that the pureed pumpkin that I make fresh and freeze each year, I can sometimes be swimming in the stuff!

Do you remember the pumpkin drought of 2011 when pumpkin simply wasn’t available? My habit started then. I’m sure of it.

During the spring, I did a massive pantry reorganization and realized that I had, again, hoarded stockpiled  stocked more pumpkin than I knew I could use in a year or two. And while I know that the ‘best by’ dates on canned goods aren’t something that I absolutely have to abide by as far as how long it’s good for, I knew I couldn’t talk the boys into pumpkin smoothies every single day of the week to use up the excess. So I had to do something.

Looking at the giant dehydrator on my counter — yep, you’re about to be put to work!

How to Dehydrate Pumpkin Puree

And bonus that this works on your home pureed pumpkin as well!

It’s as easy as opening a can, smearing it on a dehydrator sheet, throwing it on your dehydrator and letting it go! And bonus that this works on your home pureed pumpkin as well!

Pour your can of pumpkin puree on a dehydrator sheet. I used the Excalibur sheets for my Excalibur, but your dehydrator will have its own sheets to use. Each sheet held 1 can of pumpkin for me for the Excalibur, but you’ll have to judget what your tray can hold. This is approximately 2 C of pumpkin puree.

Tip: If using homemade pumpkin puree, measure by the cup as you put them on trays. It will help you later in knowing how to store and reconstitute.

Swimming in canned pumpkin or freezer bags full of pumpkin puree? Here's how to dehydrate your canned pumpkin puree and make pumpkin powder!

Make sure to spread the puree out into the thinnest layer possible. It will make it easier to dehydrate and go more quickly.

Swimming in canned pumpkin or freezer bags full of pumpkin puree? Here's how to dehydrate your canned pumpkin puree and make pumpkin powder!

Tip: In her book, The Ultimate Dehydrator Cookbook, Tammy Ganglott suggests using a pizza cutter to carve a checkerboard pattern into your puree to make it easier to break into pieces later. 

Dry at approximately 125F for 10-12 hours . You ‘ll see in this photo that my pumpkin is pretty dark. I didn’t double check the dial before walking away, and had hit it and turned it too high. You can’t really burn it, but I came back when it had been going for quite a long time at a higher than normal temp. It’s really fine. It’s not bad, it’s not non-nutritious, it’s just a little darker than it would be.

You’ll want to check it after about  hours to flip  your pumpkin sheets. What happens is the puree dries well on the top surface and the edges as they start to turn up, but that area still touching your dehydrator sheets may still be pretty wet, so you can turn over the pumpkin to give it a better drying time.

Swimming in canned pumpkin or freezer bags full of pumpkin puree? Here's how to dehydrate your canned pumpkin puree and make pumpkin powder!

At this point, you can store your pumpkin sheets in airtight containers to rehydrate as needed. Just make sure you are keeping track of how much you’re putting on each tray so that you know how to store it for use later.

This time, however, I’m going to show you how to take it one step further and make pumpkin powder!

How to Make Pumpkin Powder

If you plan on making pumpkin powder from your dehydrated pumpkin puree, you don’t need to worry about how much each sheet is. In the end, you’ll be measuring on a ratio to rehydrate the powder, so just do it in batches.

Swimming in canned pumpkin or freezer bags full of pumpkin puree? Here's how to dehydrate your canned pumpkin puree and make pumpkin powder!

Grind your dehydrated pumpkin until you’re down to a powder. You’ll want to sift it through a fine wire mesh strainer

Swimming in canned pumpkin or freezer bags full of pumpkin puree? Here's how to dehydrate your canned pumpkin puree and make pumpkin powder!

or, like we did, used my grandmother’s old flour sifter to sift through and break down some of the larger bits.

Swimming in canned pumpkin or freezer bags full of pumpkin puree? Here's how to dehydrate your canned pumpkin puree and make pumpkin powder!

You’ll want to repeat this with the leftover bits as many times as you need to. It took me 3 times of running through the blender to get to the point where I was happy with the amount of powder gotten, and threw the last little bit into my coffee grinder for the last bit because it works better that way than in a large blender.

Now, don’t get discouraged by this. This amount, which is about a quarter of a quart canning jar is 4 cans of pumpkin or 8 cups. I wanted you to see the approximate amount of what the cans work out to be. Because I didn’t start from a real pumpkin, I can’t give you an approximation of what size pumpkin produces how much powder because it really does matter the size of the pumpkin you started with. But 1 can of pumpkin puree is about 2 cups of pumpkin puree — and that will give you the idea of the ratio of puree to powder.

Swimming in canned pumpkin or freezer bags full of pumpkin puree? Here's how to dehydrate your canned pumpkin puree and make pumpkin powder!

How to Use Pumpkin Puree

The ratio of rehydrating powdered pumpkin is this:

To rehydrate, use a 4:1 ratio of water : pumpkin powder and allow it to sit for 20-30 minute to fully rehydrate.

2 C water to 1/2 C pumpkin powder = 2 C pumpkin puree

Use puree as normal in pies, muffins, etc!

101 Dehydrating Recipes & Tips from Mom with a PREP.com

Want to see the process in action?

The BEST way to show you is through this video by Bexar Prepper:


She shows you how to then rehydrate the pumpkin puree to use in recipes!
Swimming in canned pumpkin or freezer bags full of pumpkin puree? Here's how to dehydrate your canned pumpkin puree and make pumpkin powder!

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Katy Willis is a writer, lifelong homesteader, and master herbalist, master gardener, and canine nutritionist. Katy is a preparedness expert and modern homesteader practicing everyday preparedness, sustainability, and a holistic lifestyle.

She knows how important it is to be prepared for whatever life throws at you, because you just never know what's coming. And preparedness helps you give your family the best chance to thrive in any situation.

Katy is passionate about living naturally, growing food, keeping livestock, foraging, and making and using herbal remedies. Katy is an experienced herbalist and a member of the CMA (Complementary Medical Association).

Her preparedness skills go beyond just being "ready", she's ready to survive the initial disaster, and thrive afterward, too. She grows 100% organic food on roughly 15 acres and raises goats, chickens, and ducks. She also lovingly tends her orchard, where she grows many different fruit trees. And, because she likes to know exactly what she's feeding her family, she's a seasoned from-scratch cook and gluten-free baker.

Katy teaches foraging and environmental education classes, too, including self-sufficient living, modern homesteading, seed saving, and organic vegetable gardening.

Katy helps others learn forgotten skills, including basic survival skills and self-reliance.

She's been published on sites such as MSN, Angi, Home Advisor, Family Handyman, Wealth of Geeks, Readers Digest, and more.

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