Veggie Dust
- Cindy
- Jan 15
- 3 min read
There’s a point every summer when abundance tips into comedy.
The zucchini are growing faster than the humans can eat them.
The eggplant are glossy and insistent.
The cherry tomatoes keep ripening as if daring me to keep up.
I’ve already given away armloads—at work, at the community food bank, and around the neighborhood. The freezer is stocked with zoodles, baba ganoush, and zucchini bread. The pantry shelves are groaning under the weight of tomato sauce and vegetable soup.
And still—the garden keeps producing.
That’s when I stop canning and freezing.
Not because it isn’t wonderful. It is. But when the harvest comes in waves and my energy is finite, I reach for the solution that asks the least of me and gives the most back:
I dehydrate.
Why Dehydrating Wins (Especially on Busy Weeks)
Dehydrating is my low-effort, high-reward preservation method. There’s no chopping-and-blanching marathon, no pressure canner steaming for hours, no stacks of jars demanding precision.
Just wash, slice, load my trusty Excalibur, close the hatch, and walk away.
For cherry tomatoes, eggplant, and zucchini, the process is beautifully simple.
Turning Excess Into Veggie Dust
Cherry Tomatoes
Wash & slice in half
Place skin-side down in a single layer on each tray
Dry thoroughly according to your dehydrator’s manufacturer settings
Once truly dry—not tacky—pulverize into a fine powder in a Cuisinart Nut & Spice grinder
Store in an airtight jar (a sealer with a canning-jar attachment helps—I borrow my mom's Anova).
Zucchini & Eggplant
Wash & slice evenly
If you’re worried about browning, a quick dip in lemon water (1 quart water : 1–2 tablespoons lemon juice) before dehydrating helps keep eggplant slices looking fresh
Arrange in a single layer on each tray
Dry thoroughly according to your dehydrator’s manufacturer settings
Once fully dehydrated (no bend, no softness), pulverize into a fine powder
Store in an airtight jar
Mix It All Up
Add to the jars all season long, until the garden is closed
Pour all the powder in a big bowl and stir it up (try not to inhale the dust)
Aim for roughly equal parts, but don't fret if the ratios are imperfect
Store in sealed glass jars, add a desiccant if you won’t use it within a month or so
Voila! Veggie Dust
At the end of the season, the magic happens.
Tomato sweetness. Zucchini’s natural saltiness. Eggplant… quietly holding it all together.
Sometimes I add dried carrot tops—but sparingly. They can lean bitter if overused.
There are no measurements. No ratios.
Every batch is different. Every year is a surprise.
A teaspoon goes a long way.
Share Some
Veggie Dust is my favorite kind of gift:
Lightweight
Shelf-stable
Unexpected
I spoon it into small spice jars, add a handwritten label, and pass it along.
It’s perfect stirred into soups, sprinkled over roasted vegetables, added to sauces, or folded into grain dishes. It tastes like summer—concentrated and generous.
And best of all, it turns that moment of garden overwhelm into something satisfying and complete.
When the harvest feels like too much, I don’t fight it.
I dry it. I grind it. I share it.
That’s the quiet alchemy of Veggie Dust—proof that abundance doesn’t have to be managed perfectly to be meaningful.
Growing with you,
Cindy
Disclaimer: I share products I genuinely use and trust in my own garden and kitchen. None of the links on this page are affiliate links, and I don’t receive compensation for recommendations.
