How to Make Sun Dried Tomatoes and Hot Pepper Flakes

Learn how easy it is to make your own sun dried tomatoes and hot pepper flakes using fresh veggies from your summer garden. These foods are great to have on hand or give as a gift. Plus you can enjoy them all year long.

Check out these quick pickled green beans or zucchini pickles recipes.

My husband is the gardener in the family and I’m in charge of making things with the fruits of his labor. He always has plenty of tomatoes, zucchinis, cucumbers and a wide variety of peppers for me to play around with.

However he also makes quite a few recipes himself and gives them as gifts like his pickled jalapeños and his hot pepper flakes. They are always a big hit. And he also makes his own sun dried tomatoes that I personally love. I use them in a a lot of recipes. He uses a dehydrator for our recipes today as it’s the easiest way to preserve some of his summer harvest.

How to make sun dried tomatoes.

All you need to make sun dried tomatoes is some tomatoes and a dehydrator. We have used both grape and cherry tomatoes. Any tomatoes will work but larger ones will take longer and it would be best if you use plum or Roma tomatoes as they have less liquid.

My husband’s sun dried tomatoes are made with small grape or cherry tomatoes. He tried this with whole grape tomatoes and sliced grape tomatoes and the sliced won hands down. Here is how you do it.

1. Clean and thoroughly dry the peppers first.
2. Slice the small tomatoes in half and place on the dehydrator tray. Make sure to space them out a bit or just don’t overlap them.
3. Use the vegetable setting on the dehydrator or set the temperature to approximately 135°F and let the machine do the work for about 8-10 hours. Drying times may vary depending on the size.
4. You want to check them periodically to make sure they are done or to take out a few that are done faster than the others.
5. When done, place in a ziplock bag and store in the freezer so they last longer. Can also store in the refrigerator though not as long.

Some people store them in olive oil and even add dried herbs (basil, oregano, Italian seasonings) or garlic cloves for more flavor. I find they last longer just in a baggie in the freezer.

And this is what they look like when they are done. I like sun dried tomatoes as the drying process concentrates the tomato flavor. I use them a lot in my cooking.

Here are a few sun dried tomato recipes that I make with them. Most of them are keto too.

• creamy sun dried tomatoes and zucchini noodles
• creamy chicken soup
• Tuscan chicken
• tomato and herb yogurt spread
• stuffed veggie mushrooms
• slow cooker chicken with spinach and tomatoes

They are so sweet and concentrated. You can use them in dips, salad dressings, with pasta or rice or even in an antipasto dish. Below are the latest batch of sun dried tomatoes my husband has made. He use small cherry tomatoes this time.

Make your own hot pepper flakes.

These are my husband’s chile peppers. Hi uses cayenne peppers for his spicy pepper flakes. They are so colorful and pretty. He’s even made a wreath with them!

This is how you make the hot pepper flakes.

1. Clean and thoroughly dry the tomatoes first. Also cut of the stems.
2. Spread out the peppers on the dehydrator trays. Make sure they are not overlapping.
3. Use the vegetable setting on your dehydrator or set it to 135°F. They can take up to 48 hours to fully dry out. Again check them to see when they are done. Some make dry faster than other. They will be dry and brittle when ready and you can easily crush them. Note drying times may vary depending on the size.
4. When done add them to a food processor and pulse until you have the consistency of hot pepper flakes. The seeds and crushed peppers are what you usually see in grocery store products.
5. Store in a ziplock bag or airtight container. We don’t freeze these as they seem shell stable.

As I mentioned above he gives these along with his pickled jalapenos as gifts for Christmas. They both have so much more flavor than store bought.

Also we use this in so many dishes as we like hot spicy food. You can use it on pizza, in pasta, soups, stews, stir fries, etc.

By the way,a baggie full of dried peppers yields one bottle of crushed red pepper flakes.

There are so many things you can do with a dehydrator and of course you can do these in your oven if you can set it to a very low temperature  but I like the simplicity of dehydrator.

Note you can dehydrate different kinds of veggies at the same time. You can make both of these recipes at the same time and use different trays. Most machines come with many trays. They will just take different lengths of time so check them frequently.

For instance I also dehydrate zucchini and sweet potatoes for our dog. I also make nacho zucchini chips for myself. Check out those recipes too if you are interested.

I hope you like these easy recipes for making your own sun dried tomatoes and hot pepper flakes. It’s a usually and fun thing to do with produce from your garden or just fresh veggies you can get at the summer farmer’s market. Enjoy!