The 6 Best Food Dehydrators of 2024, Tested & Reviewed

We independently evaluate all of our recommendations. If you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation.

Our top pick from COSORI dried food evenly and efficiently.

Taylor is a regular contributor and product tester for Serious Eats. She has worked in the food industry for 15 years, including 10 as a line cook at some of the best restaurants in the world.

Serious Eats / Nick Simpson

The best dehydrator is the COSORI Food Dehydrator. It’s sleek, equipped with an intuitive design, and aced all of our performance tests. We also like the Nesco Snackmaster Pro Food Dehydrator which is under $100.

As seasoned kitchen appliance reviewers and home cooks, we’re familiar with food dehydrators: They're ideal for tackling preservation projects, like drying pounds of raspberries for a snack or desiccating delicate mushrooms for a pantry hit of umami. That means we also know how annoying using a poorly designed machine can be. Trying to preserve peppers and ending up with a squishy mess is no fun.

We first tested food dehydrators in 2022, naming two winners. We recently re-tested both champions and some new dehydrators to determine if our top picks still deserved their spot on the prized list. One of our original recommendations stood the test of time (and our rigorous tests!). We also named five additional winners. All of our favorite dehydrators are easy to use and clean. But which dehydrator is right for you? We’ve got picks for an overall great dehydrator, a budget-friendly pick, and an almost-silent option, plus more.

This model had a sleek design with handles for easy carrying. The magnetic hinging door allowed for seamless opening and closing. It operated quietly and performed the best in tests, producing delicious fruit leather, properly dried beef jerky, and crispy apple chips.

This dehydrator can hold up to 20 trays. Plus, it’s user-friendly with a digital interface equipped with a timer and temperature setting. It performed well in beef jerky tests, supplying chewy, tender, and thoroughly dehydrated strips. It was quiet and all of its parts are detachable for easy cleaning.

This simple dehydrator is excellent for beginners. It’s compact, effortless to tidy up, and lived up to its promise of providing evenly dried snacks. We recommend it for anyone new to dehydrating.

This Nesco dehydrator was easy to use, with a simple temperature control and removable stacking trays. The fruit leather and jerky were especially good. While it made some noise, it was simple to clean and a good choice for cooks on a budget.

The Excalibur model is one of the few models we tested with a transparent door, which helped us monitor the ingredients baking inside. We liked the analog knobs that let us toggle through time and temperature settings. It comes with nonstick polyscreen trays that made cleaning more manageable than other models since we didn’t have to use much elbow grease to scrub off sticky leftover residue. It was one of our previous winners, too.

The Samson dehydrator made the least noise and was lightweight. It has an automatic shutoff feature, just in case you’re drying fruits in the background and accidentally forget to turn off the machine. Cleanup on this dehydrator didn’t take too much effort either because there’s a convenient crumb tray at the bottom. That said, it had top-situated vents, which meant food dried inconsistently at times.

Serious Eats / Nick Simpson

Serious Eats / Nick Simpson

Dehydrators draw out the moisture from food to help extend its shelf life. On a granular level, the machines circulate air at low and consistent temperatures, typically ranging between 90°F and 175°F. This process evaporates the liquid from ingredients, which helps them dry out without actually cooking them.

Serious Eats / Nick Simpson

Dehydrators with vents on the side of the machine (like the COSORI and Magic Mill) consistently produced well-dried apple chips, beef jerky, and fruit leather. Models with vents situated on the top of the machines occasionally resulted in spongy and undercooked apple chips. The Samson “Silent” Dehydrator was a particularly bad offender, with spongy and inconsistently crisp apple chips. That said, most machines performed well in making beef jerky, regardless of the placement of their fans.

Serious Eats / Nick Simpson

This was by far the hardest test. Many of the otherwise solid-performing models struggled with fruit leather, producing leather that cracked, had large patches of undried puree, or were not dried at all toward the center. Since the fruit leather fully covered each rack from edge to edge, it clearly showed the airflow patterns. Once again, the vertical airflow models struggled and produced unevenly dried fruit leather from tray to tray. When it came to removing the fruit leather, most of the dehydrators also had issues: The leather clung to their trays and we had to peel it off in strips.

Apples also proved tricky. The best dehydrators could hold more than two pounds of apple rings (although the Nesco Gardenmaster is customizable for up to 20 trays—a silly-large amount). But most of the trays produced inconsistent apple chips. with some apples that were completely dried at the bottom but raw on the top trays. Most of the dehydrators produced apple chips that were at least partially spongy in spots.

Serious Eats / Nick Simpson

Unless you listened closely, it was tricky to tell whether some food dehydrators were powered on. So brightly-lit or digital displays were a win. Some of our favorite dehydrators, like the COSORI, had digital buttons that allowed us to adjust the time and temperature settings in specific increments. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that you need a high-tech dehydrator: The Excalibur had analog knobs that worked just as well. If you prefer low-tech appliances, rest assured that you'll be happy with any of the picks on our list, digital display or not.

Serious Eats / Nick Simpson

Of course, we also assessed how easy the trays were to clean. Those with dishwasher-safe trays came out on top. Some machines, like the Gardenmaster Pro, had trays that were not dishwasher-safe and were too big to fit fully in a regular kitchen sink, making them a pain to scrub.

Lastly, we looked at how intuitive the dehydrators were to use and how easy it was to move trays around. The best machines had controls that were easy to operate without consulting the manual. (Temperature ranges for common ingredients were great.) Also, we thought that machines that had automatic shutoffs were key. That way, you could set the machine before work or bed and not worry about your food over-drying.

Serious Eats / Nick Simpson

During our tests, we found that most models, like the Nesco Gardenmaster Digital Pro and Nesco Snackmaster Pro, emitted a slight hum, making them suitable for background operation throughout the day. Some of our top picks for quiet machines, like the Samson “Silent” Dehydrator, featured a top-vent that made comparatively little noise. (The tradeoff for a quieter top vent is poorer airflow than side vents.)

Serious Eats / Nick Simpson

Dehydrators can take up a lot of counter space, so if you have a small kitchen, opt for a more compact model like the Nesco Snackmaster Pro or Magic Mill. On the larger end of the spectrum, the Excalibur Electric was 19 by 17 by 12.5 inches. If you plan to move it around frequently, choosing a lighter machine—like the eight-pound Nesco Snackmaster Pro versus the 18-pound Excalibur—can be a practical decision, giving you the freedom to use it wherever you want without much hassle.

Serious Eats / Nick Simpson

While we're all for experimenting, there are some do's and don'ts when dehydrating. Here is a (not totally comprehensive but still thorough) list to get you started:

Dehydrate It!

Don't Dehydrate It!

Serious Eats / Nick Simpson

Look for a dehydrator with horizontal airflow, especially if you plan on using it for more than meat jerky. (Fruit leather and fruit chips benefit from vents on the side of the dehydrator.) The best dehydrators have easy-to-use interfaces and adjustable dials that allow customization of their time and temperature settings. All models are quiet and have a substantial footprint, so don't discount side handles for easy carrying. Our favorite dehydrators had nonstick trays or crumb compartments, which made them easy to clean.

What we liked: This model immediately stood out with its sleek, stainless steel design. The handles on each side made it easy to carry around and transfer from a cabinet to the counter. We really liked the magnetic hinging door that opened easily and stayed firmly shut. It had a gentle hum that didn’t disturb us, even when testing all day. The Cosori has two horizontal vents on the sides, which helped it evaporate moisture quickly: The result was the most consistent jerky, fruit leather, and apple chips with the best texture.

What we didn’t like: During the tests, we noticed some small cracks in the fruit leather, the result of overexuberant dehydration. There’s no crumb compartment, but the manual suggests using the designated “fruit leather tray” at the bottom when dehydrating juicy foods or ingredients prone to dripping or crumbling.

What we liked: This powerful 1000-watt pick (compared to the 400-watt pick from Samson), carries many of the same characteristics we love about the other winning Nesco model, but with a digital interface that has a timer and temperature setting. It also has space for 20 trays! This machine performed well in beef jerky tests, delivering chewy, tender, and thoroughly dehydrated strips. It’s equipped with fans slated vertically on the bottom as opposed to the side, similar to the Nesco Snackmaster Pro. It runs with a faint pur that isn’t bothersome. We loved how quickly we could clean this machine since all its pieces are detachable.

What we didn’t like: This model didn’t perform the best when making fruit leather. Unfortunately, the roll-ups ended up sticking to the trays and breaking. The apple chips were inconsistent, with varying spongy and crispy textures.

What we liked: This no-frills model is a great machine for anyone just getting into the art of dehydrating. It features a “keep warm” setting to avoid accidentally over-drying your jerky and a “raw” button. Compared to the other models, it takes up little real estate so that it can fit snugly in a cabinet or on your countertop. It has vents situated horizontally on both sides of the appliance. Like the COSORI, this one has an easy-to-open hinging door design, making it ideal for holding trays and opening the dehydrator with the other hand. It’s a 1000-watt powerhouse that produced evenly textured fruit leather and dried jerky in tests. With little to no noise from this machine and a quick cleaning process, we recommend this dehydrator to newbies looking for a reliable find.

What we didn’t like: It was a bit confusing to understand how to start the dehydrating process after setting the time and temperature, but after the first couple of rounds, we were pros.

What we liked: The temperature dial was easy to toggle to our target, and the stacking trays were simple to remove and situate back inside. The fruit leather peeled off the trays without sticking, and the jerky dried evenly. Its design has vertical vents on the bottom, which desiccated ingredients and helped hot air and moisture escape from the machine. It was straightforward to tidy up thanks to its crumb tray. It’s an ideal choice for cooks looking for a lower-cost dehydrator to invest in.

What we didn’t like: With its low price, you do sacrifice certain design components. For example, this model doesn’t have handles, making it hard to move around, and its trays are difficult to insert into the machine. Like many other dehydrators we tested, this one produced apple chips with uneven textures.

What we liked: The model from Excalibur has nine easy-in, easy-out trays. Its horizontal vents with airflow coming from the back of the machine excelled in removing moisture from beef during our jerky tests, resulting in easily torn pieces similar to store-bought brands. This one came with the best nonstick trays, too. (The jerky and apples did not stick at all.) We appreciated the detachable pieces (similar to the Nesco Gardenmaster Digital Pro) that made this one more straightforward than the others we tested to clean.

What we didn’t like: If you plan to set up this model in your home and use it often, it’s best to place it where you won’t need to move it because it’s pretty heavy. This dehydrator was the loudest of all our winners. Unfortunately, in apple chip tests, it delivered unevenly cooked crisps.

What we liked: The Samson delivered on its (whispered) promise: It produced the least amount of noise thanks to its vents vertically situated on the top of the machine. It comes with six trays that are easy to remove and slot back into place. There were minor inconsistencies during our tests making apple chips, beef jerky, and fruit leather, but overall, the results were still texturally appealing.

What we didn’t like: This model does not have handles for carrying, making it slightly difficult to move around. It takes a while to heat up, and the temperature increases in intervals of nine minutes, so you’ll have to reserve some time to allow for preheating. In tests, some of the apple chips were inconsistent with spongy textures.

Dehydrators are great for making healthy snacks because they preserve most of the food’s nutrients even after drying them, according to Frank Costantino, the dean of the School of Hospitality Management at the Culinary Institute of New York at Monroe College. He explains that you can also prolong the shelf life of fresh fruits and vegetables with a dehydrator. They’re also helpful in reducing waste since you can take ingredients that would otherwise spoil and dry them out—like turning bananas into chips or drying and then blending your surplus of summer tomatoes into a tasty seasoning powder.

You’ll want to avoid dehydrating fatty foods like nut butter or avocados, as the fat content prevents them from crisping. It’s advisable to trim the fat before dehydrating fatty meats such as pork shoulder or bacon to prevent them from going rancid. Plus, you’ll want to stay clear from dehydrating dairy and egg products to prevent the spread of certain germs. “Because dehydrators work at temperatures that are also ideal for bacterial growth, you need to be careful,” says Constantino.

It’s possible to dehydrate all kinds of produce as long as they’re not fatty like avocados—think strawberries, pineapples, and pears. You can also dry out vegetables like tomatoes, mushrooms, and onions, (which can be turned into savory seasonings afterward). Plus, it’s common to preserve meats and seafood such as beef, salmon, and chicken. Additionally, herbs and sauces can be dried out and repurposed to enhance the flavor of different dishes.

The USDA advises storing dehydrated jerky for one to two months. Dried fruits can last in your pantry for up to six months. The recommended storage time ranges for other foods, but it’s always a good practice to keep your dehydrated items in a cool, dry, and dark area so they don’t spoil.