The Top 10 Best Food Dehydrators Reviewed

Unlike the somewhat intimidating Excalibur, this Cosori food dehydrator is something you’d expect to see in the back of a particularly laid-back restaurant. Its exterior, except for the glass window and some plastic trim (as well as the six trays inside), is made of food-grade stainless steel. This is rarely a bad thing as far as either appearance or hygiene is concerned.

There are cheaper plastic dehydrators available that are nearly identical, such as this model from Chefman. All of these machines are comparable in size, features, and basic performance – the single biggest advantage the Cosori offers is the metal body and trays, which by itself makes it worth the slightly higher price.

A Little Something Extra to Offer

The Cosori comes with the usual accessories, including a decent recipe book containing instructions for making some 50 dishes. Beef jerky enthusiasts, especially, will appreciate its contents. The controls are reminiscent of those on the Gourmia GFD1680 and are therefore easy enough for anyone to figure out.

Something which will make this the only choice for some people is that it runs very quietly. Many other electric food dehydrators give off a whispering noise that lies somewhere between a damaged computer fan and a hairdryerset to “low”. Some people aren’t bothered by this, while the constant hum can cause others to lose their minds. You’ll know into which category you fall.

It also has a redundant shut-off mechanism with overheat protection. If you’re forgetful, plan to run the dehydrator while you’re not around, or just don’t trust electrical stuff, these are certainly good to have. It’s always better for a malfunctioning machine to turn itself off rather than waiting for the fire department to do so.

Overall, this is a high-quality 6-tray dehydrator with a simple interface, above-average performance, and a few nice extra qualities. If you don’t mind paying slightly more, you’ll probably enjoy having it around.

One of the paradoxes of our society is that tons of nutritious foods go to waste each day even while some people don’t have enough to eat. Food dehydrators can go a long way toward solving this problem.

This one might as well be made especially for those who produce a fairly large amount of fruits or other comestibles. The machine’s high-volume design, along with a generally pleasing level of build quality, makes it more than most households need, though. It’s clearly something for the more serious food drying fanatics.

This dehydrator looks industrial; you’ll probably want to keep it in your garage rather than your kitchen. This is not only because of its appearance but also the noise the fan gives off. The entire see-through door pulls off for emptying and cleaning, and the 9 large trays are made of more durable mesh than you’ll typically see in food dehydrators.

No Training Wheels

It offers the ability to set two drying sessions, at different temperatures, in one program. This is great if you prefer to get the process started quickly but continue at a gentler temperature.

The machine is also, in general, more difficult than others to use. The manufacturer clearly assumes that its customers will know what they’re doing, and the instruction booklet it provides, while useful, might be difficult for newbies to understand.

The total time it can be programmed to run at a stretch is 48 hours, which is another reflection of its semi-commercial stature. The temperature inside actually fluctuates around the point you set; unlike with cheap dehydrators, this is done deliberately and supposedly results in a better product that’s been dried more evenly throughout.

If You Need It, You’ll Know It

Heat from its 600-Watt element is evenly distributed by a powerful 7-inch fan. This may seem like too little power for the 15 square feet volume of food it’s designed to handle, but its insulation, large trays, and drying process makes the whole setup work quite well.

Filling it completely takes a good while, and the trays are only about an inch apart. If you do want something to get done quickly, it’s a good idea to remove every other rack to allow the heated air to blow through freely.

This 9-tray dehydrator will be overkill for the average household, but it’s the perfect food dehydrator for someone who owns a smallish orchard, deli, or butchery. Or anyone extremely serious.

Our Favorite Stacking Dehydrator

Unlike the majority of food dehydrators that use stackable trays, this model from Hamilton Beach has a rectangular stainless steel housing for the warm air generator, topped by five reasonably-sized plastic trays. Like the Nesco Snackmaster Pro, it uses a central air conduit to spread hot air more evenly (at the cost of having a hole in the center of all your trays).

If anything, this dryer has better heat distribution than the Snackmaster Pro even at a slightly lower power output. Sadly, it’s also smaller in terms of effective drying space, even compared with a base-model Nesco.

Apples and Apples, But of Different Colors

Continuing our comparison of the Hamilton Beach and the very similar Nesco, both have similar temperature controls, both offer attachments for making fruit leathers and drying fine herbs, neither is poorly built, and neither will look out of place in most kitchens.

The major difference is that this food dehydrator has a timer, in fact, one that can be programmed for a cycle of up to 48 hours. Most food dehydration processes don’t take nearly as long, but the fact that the Nesco requires you to plan your drying so that you’ll be around to switch it off is a headache.

You could say that the Nesco Snackmaster Pro is our favorite stackable option for drying space, while we prefer the Hamilton Beach for the extra ease of use its timer provides. This one, therefore, wins by a hair in this category.

Somewhat similar to the Presto Dehydro but with a modern look that allows you to see in from all sides, this NutriChef dehydrator is just too easy to use. It has only two possible settings: “go” and “stop going”.

Our major concern about it is that it “goes” just a little too fast.

The Fast and the Furious

The reason for this is as follows: beef jerky and other dehydrated meat products need to reach a sustained temperature of at least 140ºF to kill germs (that’s of course assuming that the ingredients were fresh to begin with). The only way to actually measure this is with a meat thermometer, but you’ll usually be okay if you’ve set your dehydrator to 10 or 15 degrees above that.

Nutrichef seems to have taken the “better safe than sorry” approach with this design, which can reach up to 180ºF. This is not, unfortunately, a good thing in every case. Herbs and other plants contain a multitude of vitamins, enzymes, and other organic chemicals. These make an important contribution to nutritional value as well as to flavor. These compounds are fragile, though, and are degraded and destroyed by too much heat. Most experienced dehydrator cooks will dry fruits, vegetables, and herbs at around 120ºF or lower to preserve them in a state as close to fresh as possible.

Nuking food at sixty degrees higher than this recommended temperature, therefore, makes for good jerky or dried fish, but sub-par veggies. Using more heat will also give a much greater discrepancy between the inside and the crust of a piece of fruit, making it easy to think that something has been dried properly when it’s actually going to spoil sooner than you think.

An Outlier in Terms of Design

Choosing this high temperature may have been the manufacturer’s way of dealing with the airflow and heat distribution problems associated with compact, stacking dehydrators (which, again like with the Presto, are made worse by a lid that’s difficult to seat properly).

It’s very likely that you’ll have to rotate the bottom and top trays in this food dehydrator, unless you can live with a noticeable discrepancy in texture. This whole situation isn’t helped by the under-powered element, which means that it takes quite some time to reach operating temperature and recipes will be impossible to follow closely.

Why then, given all of these drawbacks, does it deserve a place alongside some appliances that seem greatly superior? Basically, it’s just that people love these things for making beef jerky, while it can also deal with other kinds of food in a pinch. It only holds about 2 pounds of meat (meaning you’ll end up with just over half a pound of jerky), but it’s an efficient, low-cost, easy-to-use option for someone who just wants to make a couple of high-protein snacks now and again.

Another nice thing about the Nutrichef is that the trays can be adjusted in height, for storage or to change the total volume the hot air has to fill. Considering its suitability for dehydrating meat, it is also nice that the manufacturer includes a drip tray.

The wide range within which you can select the drying temperature makes it a good choice if you want to get the best results with meat as well as more delicate fresh produce. The same can’t be said for many other dehydrators costing roughly the same, including the NutriChef Countertop Food Dehydrator and Presto Dehydro. Unfortunately, there’s no timer to switch it off automatically. A separate timer may be used to fill this gap, though.

Innovative Dehydrator

What makes this food dehydrator interesting is a unique air circulation system that promotes more even drying. It also reduces flavor mixing if different types of food are being dehydrated at the same time.

Unlike with most stack-type dehydrators (i.e. ones with trays piled on top of one another instead of sliding into the machine body), it should never be necessary to rotate trays halfway through the drying process.

Also, unlike the typical stacked model, the high-speed fan is mounted in the lid. This sucks warm air up through a central shaft, returning it to each tray individually from the hollow sidewalls. This is clearly superior to the way a typical stackable dryer distributes heat. Still, like the manufacturer’s claim that the light-blocking body improves the final product, how much it really adds should probably be taken with a small grain of salt.

Doohickeys, Frills, and Extras

It comes with a 50-page recipe book and guide, which impressed us with its comprehensiveness as well the simplicity with which things are explained.

You may also buy additional trays up to a total of 12, as well as some useful attachments beyond those that come in the box. With this food dehydrator, buying the manufacturer’s accessories makes some sense. For instance, though you can usually just as easily use parchment paper to support stuff like fruit rolls, this dehydrator’s trays have large holes in the middle for the ventilation shaft.

Adding more screens is like building a little tower, meaning that the appliance grows taller when you add more. This is nice in that buying additional screens shouldn’t interfere much with your drying results, but it’s something to keep in mind if your kitchen cabinets offer little overhead space.

Unfortunately, at this price, something had to be sacrificed, and the manufacturing quality isn’t exactly world-class. It works perfectly well for the most part, but it would be easy to damage the trays and other parts with careless handling. Someone who plans to use it constantly should therefore look elsewhere.

The first thing that jumps out at you about this electric food dehydrator is its modern, sleek appearance. This is only enhanced by the clear glass door that allows you to peek in without disturbing the dehydrating process. (And don’t we and our guests all like to see how our work is progressing?)

The rectangular shape makes it slightly more difficult to achieve free airflow, though the large rear-mounted fan seems to take care of any problem in this regard.

One obvious benefit of a squarish shape is that it’s a more efficient way to utilize counter space. There is a slight caveat here, though: since all food dehydrators need to get rid of warm, moist air, its performance will be impacted if you don’t leave a gap of three inches or so between the appliance and anything around it.

Enough to Get Started

This model, like most food dehydrators on our list, comes with a fruit roll sheet you can use to dry out purée or soup, though only one of these. This should allow you to dehydrate about two cups of very thick liquid at a time; more can be purchased if you’re a fruit leather junkie. Another included attachment, not found in all dehydrators, is a drip tray, which makes cleaning up much easier.

Six pull-out trays provide all the drying space most households will need, though they’re spaced together more closely than we’d really like. If you insist on cutting your pineapple slices an inch thick, they will probably take quite some time to dry. As with the Nesco Snackmaster Pro (and in fact most domestic food dehydrators), these trays are made of plastic, though the manufacturer assures us that it’s BPA-free. If you really abuse them, they will bend or break, but the machine looks sturdy enough otherwise.

Easy Peasy Dried Lemon Slices

A simple, intuitive control panel allows you to set both temperature and run time. You can also adjust these while the dryer is operating if you see something going wrong, without switching off the machine.
Presumably, to save you from pushing the increment/decrement buttons a million times, changes are set in increments of 9 degrees and thirty minutes. This should be accurate enough for any sane person.

Though we wouldn’t have minded seeing a few more recipes that have actually been tested on this food dehydrator, the documentation is clear enough and the controls easy to use. Even if you’ve never seen a dehydrator before, you should be up and running within minutes as long as you follow the instructions.

In general, users of this machine are pretty happy with its performance, whether they use it to dry fruit, vegetables, jerky, flowers, nuts, or dog treats. Though its power output is a little on the anemic side, its typical drying times compare well to more powerful dehydrators. And since you don’t need to turn it off yourself, timing is less important in any case.

The low wattage rating will, however, can be a dealbreaker, particularly if you like to dry meat products and are used to something with more oomph. At this price tag, you certainly can find better in this regard.

The Presto 06300 Dehydro is like a classic Volkswagen of food dehydrators. It doesn’t look like much and doesn’t even try to do many of the things its competitors can, but it manages what it’s designed to do adequately. It’s a workhorse, not a Derby champion, and even though its name sounds like something out of Harry Potter, it’s not magic.

Warm air is fed from the bottom through each successive tray, while the lid only sits in place and can come askew easily. This affects the heat distribution somewhat, but (assuming you’re home) you can compensate for this by moving the top trays down to a lower position every few hours. This arrangement is also likely to lead to some flavor transfer: if you want to dehydrate onions with the Presto Dehydro, do them separately from your peaches.

User-Friendly, but Not Versatile

It’s dishwasher safe, so very easy to clean and store. And though the base model is not very large, you can extend it by buying additional drying trays. Its thermostat is only capable of maintaining a temperature of 165ºF, though, which is higher than that recommended for many fruits and vegetables. People who are familiar with food dryers and like to tweak their recipes to perfection will not like this.

Still, if you’re not too fussy and use fresh, ripe produce, this little gadget will still churn out snacks far superior to anything you’ll find in a supermarket.

Unfortunately, the thermostat regulating the heating element will be at a higher temperature than the air inside. This tends to make vegetables dry from the outside in, rather than evenly.

Other than the fixed thermostat, this appliance’s size can be a concern. Trays are only about an inch high, which limits both how much you can fit in each and how large you can slice food without interfering with the distribution of heat.

You should still be able to dry half a dozen apples at once in the four supplied trays, depending on how thickly you slice them, but a restaurant would never buy this particular model. On the other hand, the dehydrator trays collapse into one another for storage, a feature that will be welcomed in most smaller kitchens.

The fixed thermostat also means that there are no controls to confuse you. You plug it in to turn it on; you unplug it when you’re done.

This food dehydrator is a good choice if you want to get into dehydrating but don’t want to commit a lot of money or effort to it right now. It’s so simple to use that you can hardly do anything wrong, and the uncomplicated mechanism makes it more reliable – no fancy digital circuits that can break down. Those who’ve been dehydrating food for years and have gotten used to precise control will probably not give the Presto a second look, though.

In terms of size and even appearance, this Magic Mill food dehydrator falls about halfway between the Excalibur 3948CDB and the Cosori Premium.

It’s much quieter than the Excalibur, though not as near-silent as the Cosori. Unlike with the other two, though, its timer only runs for a maximum of 19.5 hours. This is perfectly adequate for most tasks but won’t work with some recipes and techniques.

There is one major aspect of this appliance you should know about: the clear front panel slides off upwards, which is a real pain if you have a cabinet overhanging its front or nowhere clean to put the panel down. The way the window fits into its grooves might, however, help seal the hot air inside better than a hinged door does.

Another thing to point out is that, while most manufacturers of shelf dehydrators like to go with a shoebox shape, the Magic Mill is taller than it is wide. As always with appliances, where you plan to put it plays a big role in making the best choice.

Solid Performance, But With a Few Concerns

The control panel is roughly similar to that of the user-friendly Cosori, though you should know that the temperature settings change in large increments if you press the button only once. You need to hold it down for fine adjustments. Just like with both competitors, warm air is pushed through the racks by a fan at the back, resulting in efficient, even airflow all over.

Most of the food dehydrators we’ve reviewed here have BPA-free, ETL-certified (Edison Testing Laboratories) trays. This shouldn’t pose any kind of problem with the temperatures at which food dehydrators operate, but many people still prefer stainless steel drying racks. This is indeed one of the major selling points of this model, for ease of cleaning and durability if nothing else. It’s recommended that no more than 1 pound of food be placed on each, which seems like all you’ll need for most jobs. Unlike most dehydrators, the Magic Mill also comes with an attachment you can use to hang larger strips of jerky vertically.

One problem that has been reported is that that the outer shell sometimes warps after several uses, making it difficult to slide the racks in properly. This may be due to the machine dehydrating its own structure (even solid plastic absorbs a small amount of water), so people in humid climates might want to take note. The all-metal body of the Cosori will not have this problem unless you take a hammer to it.

Apart from that, the machine itself looks to be pretty rugged, so depending on how heavily you plan to use it this will probably work well for you. If the Magic Mill doesn’t quite meet your needs for some reason, one of the two other models mentioned will certainly bridge the gap.

Quite a few people buy a food dehydrator as a business investment, or perhaps so they can drown their friends and family in gifts of dried peaches, apple rings, beef jerky, and kale chips. If your intention is the former, the realities of profit and loss will probably cause you to focus on drying the largest volume of food at the lowest possible cost. You’ll therefore need a durable, reliable food dehydrator that can cycle quickly, even if it’s not aesthetically pleasing or especially easy to use.

This is what this STX offers: you will not be able to control the drying process as precisely as with the Excalibur, but you will be able to push a great deal of product through in a relatively short amount of time. A variable thermostat and 15-hour timer (compared to the 48-hour timer on the Excaliber) allows you to handle a variety of products, from herbs to salted fish.

A Powerful Dehydrator

This machine is constructed entirely of stainless steel, as are its ten very generously sized trays. The drip tray and roomy interior make cleaning and disinfecting easy, while the power unit containing the heating element and fan clips onto the back for easy maintenance – all things that are important to someone who uses their food dehydrator to earn money rather than for filling their own table.

The controls aren’t exactly difficult to figure out, but nor are they as intuitive as those on models like the Cosori or as simple as the one-button system of the Presto Dehydro.

The instruction booklet, as you would expect from a dehydrator that’s made explicitly for commercial use, is on the rudimentary side. People using this 10-tray food dehydrator will most likely want to create their own recipes in any case.

One thousand two hundred watts of power is, if anything, more than what is necessary for a dehydrator of this size. What this amount of heating does do is get the interior to the correct temperature quickly, regardless of how much food is in it. This makes the outcome of any given batch more predictable and improves food safety. The metal body is not insulated, though: watch that electrical bill and keep small children away from it while the machine is running.

In the debit column for this dehydrator, you’ll find that the manufacturer doesn’t sell any fine-mesh trays for herbs nor any non-stick fruit roll sheets. Having these made to size will probably cost quite a bit, while using attachments meant for other machines will waste some space.

More significantly, perhaps, the STX looks more like an air conditioner than a cooking appliance. Unless you’ve completely given up on the idea of decorating, this is the last thing you’ll want to see in your kitchen.

Toaster ovens have something of a bad reputation as being little more than toys. This is a fair description of some cheaper models, but they do have a few things going for them: they take up little space and use less energy than a full-sized oven, they’re the perfect size to feed one or two people, and they are capable of way more than most users realize.

You can, in fact, make tender slow-cooked steak, crispy roast vegetables, or bake perfect bread rolls as if it was a dedicated bread maker. Assuming that you can set the temperature as low as about 120 ºF, like with this model, you can even dehydrate fruits and vegetables.

What makes this particular toaster oven even more attractive is its air-fryer and rotisserie functionality. This means that you can use it to roast whole chickens, kebabs, and create oil-free french fries with relative ease.

Not a Real Food Dehydrator

The included recipe book, containing directions for 50 dishes tested on this appliance, reflects this range of capabilities. Serious cooks probably won’t swoon over this oven, but anyone who wants to be able to cook a variety of meals by essentially putting stuff in the oven, pressing a button, and waiting a while will be very impressed.

You will, however, not take long to notice its limitations once you start using it. Many frozen pizzas, for instance, won’t fit, while you can just barely cram in a large chicken. The same also applies to dehydrating food: with only three racks, this is not the machine for anyone who needs to dry entire harvests. If, however, you just want to make the occasional garnish or snack, you might find it perfectly adequate. This certainly describes some of our readers, which is why we’ve included this all-in-one option in our list.