If you just unboxed a dehydrator and aren’t sure where to start, this is the order I’d actually recommend working through. Each recipe builds a skill you’ll use on the next one, so by the end you’ll have a real foundation instead of just one good batch of apple chips.
In This Article
Week 1: Apple Chips (Learn Slicing & Timing)
Start here. Apples are forgiving, cheap, and teach you the single most important skill in dehydrating: slicing to a consistent thickness. Slice apples to about 1/8 inch using a mandoline if you have one, optionally dip in lemon water to prevent browning, and dry at 135°F for 6–12 hours until leathery with no moisture pockets. My full apple chips recipe covers the details.
Slice one tray thin and one tray slightly thicker on your first batch. Comparing the two side by side teaches you more about how thickness affects drying time than any written guide can.
Week 2: Banana Chips (Learn Doneness Testing)
Bananas are nearly as forgiving as apples but teach a different skill: recognizing doneness by feel rather than trusting a clock. Slice to 1/4 inch, dry at 135°F for 6–10 hours, and practice checking texture starting at hour 6 rather than waiting for a fixed time. See my banana chips recipe for full guidance.
Week 3: Kale Chips (Learn Low-Temperature Drying)
Kale chips introduce a lower temperature range (around 125°F) and a faster overall cycle, teaching you that not everything runs at the same settings as fruit. It’s also your first real test of even tray loading, since kale pieces are irregular and prone to overlapping if you’re not careful. Full recipe in my kale chips guide.
Week 4: Fruit Leather (Learn Liner Sheets)
This is where you learn why liner sheets exist — pureed fruit will run straight through a standard tray without one. Blend fruit into a smooth puree, spread thin and even on a solid liner sheet, and dry at 135°F for 6–8 hours until it peels away cleanly with no tackiness. My fruit leather recipe covers flavor variations once you’ve got the base technique down.
Spread fruit leather puree evenly from edge to edge. Thin spots dry and can burn slightly before thick spots are finished, which is the most common beginner mistake with this recipe specifically.
Week 5: Basic Beef Jerky (Learn Meat Safety)
Save meat for last, after you’ve built confidence with produce. Jerky introduces real food safety stakes that fruit and vegetables don’t carry — proper temperature (155–165°F), lean cuts, and safe marinating practices all matter here in a way they didn’t in the first four weeks. Start with my beef jerky guide and don’t skip the temperature verification step with a separate probe thermometer on your first batch.
Beyond Week 5
Once you’ve worked through these five, you’ve covered the core skill set: slicing, doneness testing, low-temperature drying, liner sheets, and meat safety. From here, branch out based on what you actually enjoyed most — my dehydrator snacks roundup and creative uses guide are good next stops depending on whether you want more snack variety or want to explore non-food projects.
Frequently Asked Questions
You can start anywhere, but building slicing and doneness-testing skills on forgiving foods first makes it easier to get jerky right the first time, since meat has real food safety stakes that fruit doesn’t.
It’s a suggested pace, not a strict schedule. Some people work through all five recipes in a single weekend; others space them out. What matters is completing each one before moving to the next, not the calendar time between them.
That’s normal and part of the learning curve. Under-dried batches can usually go back in for more time; over-dried batches are still often usable in baking or as soup additions rather than wasted entirely.
Bottom Line
Five recipes, five core skills, in an order that builds confidence before introducing real food-safety stakes with meat. Work through them in sequence and you’ll have a genuinely solid foundation for everything else on this site.
