Countrified Hicks: Dehydrating Lettuce and Making Green Powder

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Dehydrating Lettuce and Making Green Powder

Hello. My name is Melody. I like to dehydrate. (Imitating an admission at a support group.) It's true. It's almost a compulsion. If it can be dehydrated, you better believe that I will try to dehydrate. I'm up to the challenge. If you have been reading my posts you know that I even dehydrate watermelon and eggs. If it is a fruit, a vegetable, an herb, or any kind of liquid (sauce, etc.) I WILL dehydrate it.

We had a surplus of lettuce this year. We could only eat so much of it and I hate things to go to waste so I dehydrated it. Much of the lettuce was iceberg lettuce with not a lot of nutritional value but by gorries, it has some and it WILL be put to use. ;-)

To dehydrate lettuce, rinse the lettuce and pat it dry. I then shredded the lettuce. You can also make lettuce chips (similar to Kale chips) if you have leaf lettuce. Anyway, once it is shredded, just spread it out onto your dehydrator trays.

Shredded lettuce.

It does not take long to dehydrate. Within about 4 hours the lettuce should be nice and crisp.


Dehydrated lettuce.

I then take the lettuce out and place it in my Magic Bullet and pulse it down into a powder.

Homemade green powder.

You can use any greens this way. I do Kale, spinach, carrot tops, collard greens, etc. this way and make "green powder". Green powder can be added a teaspoonful or so at a time to eggs, salads, casseroles, meatloaf, smoothies, etc. It adds extra nutrition, with no change in texture to items. A good way to sneak in some veggies without your family catching on. Also, a good way to use up lettuce that may have gone to waste before.