Ingredients

fresh ginger root, ~the size of your hand

Method

1. Wash the outside of the ginger to remove any remaining dirt, making sure to get into all of the crevices. If there are any segments of the root that are too tight together to clean out, you can always break these pieces off to make sure you can clean in between. OR You can peel the ginger if desired. The skin can easily be removed with the head of a spoon, or you can use a wire brush to remove all of the more papery parts of the skin. I choose to leave it on for all of my uses.
2. Cut off any parts of the ginger that may have started to rot.
3. Cut the ginger into slices. The thinner they are sliced, the quicker they will dehydrate; the more even the slices, the more likely they will dry in the same time. To make quick work of this, I recommend slicing with a mandoline or the slicing attachment of a food processor.*
4. Place in your dehydrator trays so that the slices do not overlap or touch each other. This will ensure even drying.
5. Dehydrate at 95°F-100°F for 4-12 hours (depending on how thin/thick your slices are. Check every 4 hours to see if the pieces have reached the desired consistency – they are done when the pieces crack/snap when bent.
6. Optional: if turning into ginger powder, blend in a spice grinder or blender**  until the ginger turns to a fine powder. Pass through a fine mesh sieve to remove any larger chunks. These chunks can be blended down again and passed through the sieve to ensure they don’t go to waste. The stringy parts of the ginger are likely to be left behind even after grinding multiple times.
7. Store whole dried pieces or powder in air tight containers.

Notes:

1. *If you are choosing to dehydrate ginger specifically to turn it into ginger powder, you can also grate it. This will make smaller pieces that can dry much more quickly. You may just need smaller grated trays to make sure the grated pieces don’t all fall through the holes of the regular trays.
2. **If using a blender to make ginger power, I recommend using a glass or metal blender, or a cup you don’t use as frequently if using something like a NutriBullet. The dry ginger is a medium-hard spice that can leave the plastic smelling like ginger even after a few washes.
3. I don’t recommend drying ginger in the oven, as ovens are typically far too hot for the delicate nature of the ginger root. The beneficial properties and pungent flavour/scent of ginger root will be hindered if dried at these hotter temperatures. The best practice is to have the biggest slices and dried at the lowest temperature for the most essential oils and nutrients.
4. Dried ginger has a ton of uses, but I personally love using smaller whole pieces in my tea (especially to have on hand for when need a holistic cure for a sore throat), larger pieces in soups and broths (so that I can fish them out easily), and ground ginger in tons of baked goods, oatmeal, and my pumpkin spice mix.