You can dice it up and add it to homemade granola. You can also dice it up and add to quick breads or sweet breads like panettone.

My uncle dries apples slices and then breaks them up over their morning oatmeal.

The traditional recipe I have for apple stack cake calls for dried apples for the filling, and my grandkids just eat the slices, although I find them a bit too chewy for my preferences.

I don't season them with anything, although I do slice them into a solution of ascorbic acid (crushed Vitamin C tablets) and water to prevent the browning due to oxidation.

They can also be used for pies, muffins or cupcakes, in a sauce for chicken or pork, lots of things.

Annie

it took me a few tries to get apples dehydrated the way we like them. too thin, too thick, just right. I cube them after dehydrating, the size of a pea, and mix with some chopped nuts and seeds for a granola/yogurt topping. I keep that ready to go in the freezer.

Recently found a big food saver sealed bag of slices in the freezer from last year. Pies are tricky especially if you like the usual fresh apple pies of today. I had some small hand pies made with dehydrated a dozen years ago from a Canadian neighbor. The usual spices like nutmeg, cinnamon, are heated on the stovetop in apple cider/water, then poured over chopped apples. Left to steep and soften for a few hours/half a day. I've added dried cranberries. Or any mixed dried fruit. Chopped pecans just before making pies. (I probably added some tapioca like I do with fruit pies). It is similar to a mincemeat pie filling.

No recipe. I just wing it as does my neighbor. But I found this recipe, HERE

The super crispy apple chips you may have had are usually freeze dried.

I was thinking pie because my son's MIL talked about how good her grandmother's dried apple pies were (and this was back when they would spread the apples on a sheet and dry them on a car dashboard!) But of course she has no recipe nor any idea how the pies were made.

We aren't terribly fond of sweets, but others are already covering that.

I do make a bit of peach flour every other year or so for a rare sweet baking use- I occasionally make applesauce doughnut cakes, and will use squash flour and sometimes peach flour in that. Also good for that extra peach hit in a peach ginger tea :)

I usually use dehydrated fruit for other cooking. Citrus slices get used in beverages hot and cold and great for using in marinades, roasts, braises, stuffing poultry with. Pineapple and kiwi are great for marinades and braises too- both contain enzymes that are good for tenderizing meat and adding that touch of interesting but not sugar sweet to things. Cherries are good for the occasional jam, mulled drinks and slow cooking- and can stand in for raisins in rice dishes and other savory.

Apples and pears are also great for marinades, slow cooking, roasts, braises... Dried apples and pork chops are a winter fave- sometimes with fresh cabbage, often just the apples and onions. They can do well rehydrated and added to potato and sausage casseroles or potato pancakes. Can also play nice in pumpkin/squash soups, in curries, and mixed into rice or grains. Apples, cherries, and walnuts in brown rice is extra good with roasted meats. Both go well into hot drinks too.

I also like to make my own suet cakes for the birds during the later winter, and will often toss in a handful or two of dried fruit bits.

Edie, I haven't done it, but I've heard the process for pie. It's pretty straightforward, but it might help a lot if you can find a basic recipe to start from. Soak the apples--in water, sugar water, wine, juice... If, like me, you don't care for heavily sweet, don't add sugar/juice to the liquid. I'd say, taste the rehydrated fruit for sugar level. You do need to add sugar to the pie because sugar is magic. I'm just saying watch the extra sugar in rehydrating. Wine works really well in rehydrating. IIRC, when you make pie this way you're going for more of a jammy filling than the kind of stacked apple slices I do with fresh apples and hardly any sugar, but there may be a lot of other variations that I don't know about. Dehydrating tends to enhance the sweetness and lose the tartness, so you might want to have some acid (e.g., lemon juice), but, again, taste the rehydrated apple. Dehydrating also concentrates the apply flavor which is probably why your friend remembers liking it so much, when it really was a way of preserving and utilizing over time. Not everyone has an apple cellar. Good luck!

Oh, and you can also chop dried fruit and roll them up in yeast breads, pastries, coffee cakes, cookies, etc., so drying in general isn't wasted effort. :)

I really appreciate all the suggestions. Our local orchard has the best yellow delicious and jonagold apples available right now and I would love to have that yumminess last through winter. Lots of things I hadn't thought of too. Plllog, thank you for the pie directions. If I can get it to work I can surprise her with hopefully close to something she remembers!

Edie, this Food & Wine recipe sounds really good, and just as easy to make a proper pie from it.

https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/dried-apple-hand-pies

plllog, thank you so much! I have both the filling and pastry recipes saved. Can't wait to try this.

All of our friends use to brag about my late mother-in-law's fried apple pies. They said they tried to duplicate them with no success. I remember her being asked about them and she said she used dried apples. She never made them when I knew her. She was from Kentucky, from a very poor family so she probably learned from her mother and grandmother.

Madonna

carolb, do you store your dried slices in the freezer or just in a container on a counter?

My dried fruit goes in wide mouth glass jars or snap lid plastic containers and stays out mostly, but if I manage to have any left after a week or so, it goes in the fridge because I worry about mold in our warm, humid climate. I've never had anything get moldy, but bananas do seem to get darker.

I dry bananas a lot and we like them soft & chewy.

Oh that's good, freezer space is always at a premium. Thanks!

I made a lot of dried apples last year, and I store the slices with desiccant packets, either in Foodsaver bags or jars.

As much as I like eating them as snacks, we still have some left, and we also have new apples on our tree in L.A., which I will need to pick when we go back later this month. I will probably need to pick bananas also, and maybe I should consider dehydrating those as well.

Here in the desert our climate is extremely dry (10% humidity is common), but in L.A. we are close to the beach, and so we have more normal humidity there.

Lars, where do you find the desiccant packets?

I ordered them from Amazon.

You have to order a quantity of 50 packets, but I have found many uses for them. I add them to dried vegetables and tomato powder that I buy.

Incidentally, if you buy tomato powder in a plastic container, I recommend transferring it to a glass container with a couple of desiccant packets. Fortunately I can vacuum seal some glass jars, but never plastic ones.

Great - thank you so much for the link! I will get them ordered ASAP because I am hoping to get my first batch of apples tomorrow. I really do appreciate it.