I’ve been doing some experimenting lately with dehydrating blueberries. While neither attempt was a complete failure exactly, I certainly didn’t end up with a technique I’m willing to share as the “tried and true” method to dehydrate blueberries. This is why you’re reading a post about how to make blueberry sauce from dried berries and not a post about how to dry blueberries in your dehydrater.
Instead of boring you with the details of my attempts to dehydrate blueberries, I’ll just share how I turned the situation into a happy accident, yielding a delicious homemade blueberry sauce. Not completely satisfied with my dehydrating results, and knowing my family would never eat the stuck-together blueberries that dried en mass, I decided to rehydrate them and make a sauce we can pour over ice cream or pancakes this fall.
In case you end up with some dried blueberries and don’t want to add them to cereal or granola, here’s how to make blueberry sauce from dried berries.
Step 1: Rehydrate the berries. There are a number of ways to do this, which you can read about here. I decided to add one cup of boiling water to one cup dried berries, which seemed to work well.
Step 2: Add sugar and some citrus juice, if desired. I actually made two batches of homemade blueberry sauce. In batch one, I added 1 cup of orange juice; batch two, a small splash of lemon juice. I preferred the lemon juice, but feel free to experiment according to your family’s tastes. In both batches, I added 1 cup of sugar per two cups of dried berries.
Step 3: Bring to a boil, then simmer the sauce for about 15 minutes, or until the berries have mostly rehydrated.
Step 4: Add 2 – 3 Tbs. cornstarch mixed with ¼ cold water, depending on how thick you want your sauce. In batch one, I added three tablespoons; batch two, two. I thought batch one was a little too thick, but when I mixed the two batches for canning, it worked out just fine.
Step 5: Add 1/8 teaspoon almond extract and 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon, if desired. I desired. 🙂 A little seasoning goes a long way here, so start small and add more to taste.
Step 6: Serve hot over pancakes, or you can refrigerate, freeze, or can the blueberry sauce for later use. (I chose to can mine, which you can read about in a later post.)
While I’m happy with my experiment in how to make blueberry sauce from dried blueberries, I’d still love to set aside some dried berries. So if someone out there has a great method for dehydrating blueberries, do share!