HOW TO FREEZE DRY TURKEY DISHES
If you’ve seen my youtube channel freezedryingmama, you know I like food. Like, a lot of food. In fact, second only to Veteran’s Day, my favorite holiday is Thanksgiving because to celebrate we’re expected to sit around and eat and be thankful. I can do those. Easy. Plus, I love to cook!
One of my favorite dishes is so easy to make it’s crazy.
We call it Teriyaki Turkey Rice. I know! It’s so original. I can hear you’re impressed from here.
Actually, I was surprised that this turned out so well. There’s a lot of sugar in teriyaki sauce and pineapples (especially canned pineapple.).
I’d only ever done rice one time before so I wasn’t sure how it would freeze dry when mixed with so many other carbohydrates. I’m actually so happy it turned out well. I will be doing more of this dish ASAP.
INGREDIENTS:
Leftover turkey (I had about 5 pounds left of all kinds of meat)
Two cans of pine tidbits, drained (set liquid aside)
Teriyaki Sauce
Long grain brown rice
DIRECTIONS:
I like the long grain because it feels healthier. When freeze drying, I’m always trying to think of what will be the use I’m getting out of the item. If someone needed a meal outside of my family, I would want to make sure it’s the best quality I can give them. This dish would work great and I would feel better about serving it to someone in need with multiple ways it fulfills nutrition needs – protein, carbs, and flavor.
HOW TO PREPARE THE RICE TO FREEZE DRY
Four cups of long grain brown rice in a dish with the set aside pineapple juice and the difference of water into eight cups of water, 1/8 cup of oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Cover the dish with aluminum foil and put it in a preheated oven to 180 deg C for an hour and a half or until the rice is tender.
Once the rice is cooked, scoop all of the rice into a large bowl and add in the bite-sized chunks of turkey, the drained pineapple chunks and the sauce. Mix. And Mix. Then scoop it onto the trays. I usually go a little bit over and DO NOT pack it down. Just scoop it on and smooth it out.
SHOULD I PRE-FREEZE TERIYAKI TURKEY AND RICE
I accidentally pre-froze this dish, because it was late at night and I was trying to get it put away and I didn’t want to let it sit out. So, without any space in my fridge, I trayed it up and put it in the freezer until I could get it in Frosty – my medium sized HarvestRight freeze dryer. I would definitely pre-freeze again.
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO FREEZE DRY TERIYAKI TURKEY AND RICE
Freeze drying teriyaki turkey and rice with pineapples took 48 hours and 32 minutes to freeze dry all four trays in my medium freeze dryer.
Surprisingly, the food pulled away from the edges of the tray when it was finished. This doesn’t happen every time, but it was a good indicator that we were close to finished.
Look at how stiff it is!
Look at how thick it is. The line along the dish as it breaks is jagged because of the chunks of food.
Look at the turkey in there! You could also use chicken as well.
HOW WOULD I RECONSTITUTE FREEZE DRIED TERIYAKI TURKEY AND RICE
This dish isn’t one of the ones that tastes great just as is. There’s something weird as the rice reconstitutes in your mouth.
However! Put the dish in a cast iron dish, add equal parts water and the freeze dried dish and let it warm up. Minutes. You could even just add boiling water (again, equal parts). Continue to add water until it’s the texture you need. I like it thick, but my husband likes it fairly thin.
HOW DO I FREEZE DRY TERIYAKI TURKEY AND RICE?
Many people think it’s next to impossible to do the freeze drying for themselves. This is far from factual. Freeze drying at home is made easy by Harvest Right. They sell several different sizes of freeze-drying machines that do everything in the machine – except prep and package.
That’s up to you.
For all intents and purposes, at Freeze Drying Mama we use the medium sized freeze dryer. You can check out the sizes offered by Harvest Right here https://freezedry.lt/produktas/salcio-dziovintuvas-skirtas-namams-7/
What this machine does is first freeze the items on stainless steel trays to -41 degrees or lower. This takes about 10 hours or so.
Then a vacuum pump turns on and creates a vacuum inside the drum. This is the drying stage and will vacillate the heat of the tray up and down to a pretty warm temperature. This makes the frozen items release any water in them in vapor form. The vacuum sucks the moisture to the drum. This collects in ice form on the inner circle of the drum.
Then there’s the final dry which is essentially the same thing, but with a time associated with it and an end in sight!
WHAT SETTINGS DO I USE TO FREEZE DRY TERIYAKI TURKEY AND RICE?
On the Harvest Right freeze drier – this works on all sizes – after putting the trays inside the drum on the shelves, I put in the drum cover and then tighten the handle as I lock it shut. On the computer touch screen, I selected START > CONTINUE. After inputting the settings and making sure my drain tube was closed, I walked away.