Dehydrating Sour Cream
By Joseph Parish

I for one when it involves survival believe that if I must live apart from the civilized world then I must do so in a bit of luxury. As such, I tend to store up on nice to haves like canned shrimp, lobster and crab meat, all of which does not require to be refrigerated. I often ask myself what I would do without my usual nice to have snacks and so I have decided to investigate how to dehydrate sour cream. Unfortunately at this time I do not trust keeping my homemade sour cream powder on the supply shelf but perhaps in the future I will feel much more secure in that respect.

I have no idea what the normal life expectancy of this product would be and I do understand that it is available commercially although I can be pretty certain it is rather costly. One website that I discovered some of the instant sour cream powder on had a price of $49 dollars for 10 pounds, while another offered a number 10 can for $18.95 so the price does vary. As I mentioned above I have been advised that it should be kept refrigerated, however in its dehydrated form it takes up much less space then it would normally.

Many people have asked me “What in the world would you use dehydrated sour cream for”? Well it is generally used as a flavoring agent when baking, if you make dips, several tasty sauces and for that extra zest in casseroles. I do not really think it would re-constitute in the same texture that the original was in.

It is really no major task to dehydrate it as all you really need to do is spread your sour cream out onto a non-stick sheet and place it into the dehydrator on the lowest possible setting until the sour cream has completely dried out. Then you can break it up into small pieces or grind it into a fine powder and place it into glass jars for storage. The jar should be kept in the refrigerator.

I haven’t determined that it would be safe to place it in your food storage at this time. Further research will need to be conducted. What I can attest to is that I will have some sour cream during times of emergencies.

Copyright @2008 Joseph Parish