Dehydrating Celery

Celery is one of those crops that I don't give much thought to during the growing season.  It takes a long time to grow to harvest size, so I usually wait until late summer/early fall to start collecting it.  I use celery in my soups and stocks and add it fresh to stir fries and salads for a little extra crunch.  It can tolerate some cooler weather, but not hard freezes so I am doing what I can to preserve some of my celery harvest while it's still here.

The easiest way to preserve celery is to dehydrate it or freeze it.  Dehydrating is as simple as washing the stalks, then chopping them into chunks and laying them out to dry on a tray.  I usually dry them on a screen because they shrink so much they will fall through the regular tray as they dry.  I only have one sheet like this for my dehydrator, so I can only do one tray at a time.  I don't use a ton of celery in my day to day cooking, so I should be able to dry enough for my purposes before the season ends.

If I end up with a lot of dried celery I may try grinding some and making my own celery salt for seasoning different dishes.  I have a whole bed of this stuff which is way more than I will use in a year, but if I can preserve enough I may be able to skip growing celery next year and just use what I have stored up.

So far I have fit over 60 celery stalks into this quart jar and there is still room for plenty more.  Hopefully the weather will cooperate long enough for me to finish filling this jar, but even if it doesn't I think I will still have plenty for this winter.