Gourmia GFD1950 Premium Electric Food Dehydrator Machine

The 10 Best Food Dehydrators Reviews

Whether you want to preserve an overabundance of home-grown produce, eat more raw produce, create homemade fruit rollups or crispy kale chips, make handmade dog treats, or customize your own flavored jerky, food dehydrating is a fun alternative to store-bought snacks.¹ Dehydrating food creates concentrated flavors and crispy textures, which are great for taking on hikes or anytime snacking. Certain nutrients that are broken down by cooking with heat are retained when dehydrated at standard temperatures.

To help you find which food dehydrator is best for your kitchen, we tested 22 models side-by-side in our Lab and evaluated their ease of use, performance, ease of cleaning, design, and noise. All products tested in the Lab were used to dry herbs and make fruit leather, while home testers also tested certain models with jerky, fruit and veggie chips, herbs, citrus zest, and more.

Here are the best food dehydrators, according to our home and Lab tests.

1. Best Overall: Cosori Premium Stainless Steel Dehydrator

Our Ratings

Ease of Use 5/5
Performance 5/5
Ease of Cleaning 4.5/5
Design 5/5
Noise 5/5

What do buyers say? 86% of 12,200+ Amazon reviewers rated this product 5 stars.

One of the sleekest dehydrators you’ll find, this Cosori model is black and stainless steel with a glass door that lets you keep an eye on the drying process. It’s got a digital control panel that is easy and intuitive to use and arrives fully assembled. Simply set the time and temperature, which can be set to operate up to 48 hours and between 95 and 165 degrees Fahrenheit.

Our Lab and at-home testers loved the automatic shutoff feature, the whisper-quiet operation, and the machine’s stellar performance; everything our testers made came out very evenly dehydrated with no cracking and peeled off the trays nicely. Our at-home tester also noted that it was easy to dehydrate foods to different textures.

You’ll receive six stainless steel drying trays, one mesh screen that can be used to dehydrate small fruit, a cookbook, and one fruit roll sheet. Cleanup is easy since all the food trays are dishwasher safe.

Price at time of publish: $160

2. Runner-Up, Best Overall: Magic Mill MFD-7100 Food Dehydrator Machine

Our Ratings

Ease of Use 5/5
Performance 4.5/5
Ease of Cleaning 5/5
Design 5/5
Noise 5/5

Our Lab testers gave this machine perfect scores across the board for ease of use, ease of cleaning, performance, design, and noise. The timer goes from 30 minutes up to 24 hours and has an automatic shutoff as well as a keep-warm feature.

This dehydrator arrives fully assembled and includes seven stainless steel trays, two mesh trays for small or sticky items, two nonstick solid trays for fruit rolls, a cookbook, and a silicone oven mitt. All trays are dishwasher safe and very easy to clean. Our Lab testers noted that the food dried very evenly from level to level, did not crack, and peeled off easily. The machine also came up to temperature after 40 minutes and stayed at the same temperature almost the whole time. Testers noted that it operated very quietly, too.

The front door is see-through and easy to open, and it stays open when you need to access the contents of the trays. The trays slide in and out easily, and the digital controls are easy to use.

Price at time of publish: $150

3. Best Budget: Elite Gourmet EFD319 Food Dehydrator

Our Ratings

Ease of Use 5/5
Performance 4/5
Ease of Cleaning 5/5
Design 3/5
Noise 4.5/5

This is a small, basic machine with a small countertop footprint, but the capacity feels larger than some of the other small models. The controls are very basic: just one knob with various temperature ranges, which makes it tricky to adjust to a specific temperature. Still, it was very easy to use and arrived fully assembled. The trays can collapse for storage and are dishwasher safe.

Our Lab testers noticed the bottom drying more quickly than the top and middle levels; it took 5 hours to make fruit leather to the point that the middle and bottom racks were fully dry. Drying herbs took 6 hours, and the middle and bottom racks were not as dry. The machine had more issues with coming up to temperature than the others but typically came up to temperature in about 20 minutes. It dehydrated more evenly and quietly than the other compact, lower-budget models we tried.

Price at time of publish: $56

4. Best Mid-Range: Nesco FD-1040 Gardenmaster Food Dehydrator

Our Ratings

Ease of Use 5/5
Performance 5/5
Ease of Cleaning 4/5
Design 4/5
Noise 3/5

This dehydrator comes with only four trays, but you can buy extra trays and use up to 20 at a time, giving you plenty of drying space. The drying pressure adjusts for the number of trays being used for more even drying, no matter how much food you have. The temperature control is digital and adjusts from 90 to 160 degrees.

This unit has a top-mounted fan, and the timer can be set for up to 48 hours of drying time. For our at-home tester, it took just six to 10 hours for drying fruit and 10 hours for jerky. In some of our Lab tests, the bottom rack seemed to dry more quickly than the middle and top racks, but the fruit leather was dried in only 3 hours and peeled off its sheet easily. Our Lab testers appreciated that the machine arrives fully assembled and comes up to temperature in 10 minutes, while they didn’t like that the opaque plastic meant there was no way to look in and check on progress.

This model comes with one screen, one fruit roll sheet, a sample of Jerky Seasoning & Cure, and a recipe and instruction book. The trays and base can be washed in the dishwasher but must be removed before the drying cycle.

Price at time of publish: $94

5. Best High-End: Tribest Sedona Express Digital Food Dehydrator

Our Ratings

Ease of Use 5/5
Performance 4/5
Ease of Cleaning 5/5
Design 5/5
Noise 5/5

If you want a dehydrator that offers a huge capacity without being too bulky, this is the one you need. The temperature adjusts from 77 to 167 degrees, and that high temperature means you can make jerky without needing to pre-cook it for safety. The dehydrator can automatically switch from an initial high temperature to a lower one for quicker drying without overcooking.

This unit has 11 dishwasher-safe stainless steel trays, a glass door, and an interior LED light, so it’s easy to check the drying process. There are several cooking modes (fast, raw, combination, and continuous), and the timer can be set for up to 99 hours per mode or up to 120 hours total—more than you’ll ever need. It operates very quietly and arrives fully assembled. In our Lab tests, the machine came up to temperature quickly and didn’t take long to make fruit leather (but did take much longer to dry herbs).

This top-of-the-line dehydrator can do it all, and its price tag reflects that. If you want to save a bit of money, you can opt for plastic trays instead of stainless steel, but the stainless steel ones will last longer. You’ll need to dry a lot of kale chips to recoup the cost, but since it comes with a 10-year warranty, chances are that you’ll get a lot of use out of it.

Price at time of publish: $550

6. Best Large-Capacity: Gourmia GFD1950 Premium Electric Food Dehydrator Machine

Our Ratings

Ease of Use 5/5
Performance 4/5
Ease of Cleaning 3/5
Design 5/5
Noise 4/5

This nine-tray dehydrator can handle large batches at a time and has an LED panel for precise temperature control. The machine arrives fully assembled and is big and tall but not too bulky; our Lab testers loved its design and ease of use. It comes with a fruit leather tray, an herb tray, a drip tray, and a recipe book.

Our Lab testers found that although the drying times were longer than the other dehydrators on this list, all trays dehydrated evenly and at the same rate.

Our testers didn’t like that the trays were hand-wash-only with lots of little crevices, but if you have the patience for hand-washing and want to be able to dehydrate large quantities of food at once, this may be the machine for you.

Price at time of publish: $100

7. Best Value Food Dehydrator

While we haven’t tested this food dehydrator it stands out for having stainless steel trays, a large see-through window and a straightforward digital control panel — all at a competitive pricepoint. Plus, it has a 4.8-star rating on Amazon and more than 10,000 reviews. Reviewers like that it is easy to program and say that it is quiet.

It can be programmed in 30-minute increments up to 48 hours, and it has a temperature range between 95ºF and 165ºF, which makes it good for herbs, jerky and everything in between. Its stainless steel housing makes it more durable than its plastic competitors. The built-in handles mean it’s easier to move around.

8. Most Copmact Food Dehydrator

The Hamilton Beach Digital Dehydrator offers a small footprint with five dehydrating trays that stack neatly. It was very easy to use and made excellent and evenly dried parsley and jerky that didn’t stick to the trays. The top of the dehydrator is clear so you can see inside the unit to monitor the progress. The buttons are also very easy to press and program. It’s a great value for someone looking to achieve the basics and easily stow away when not in use.

9. Easiest Food Dehydrator To USE

This food dehydrator is a best-seller on Amazon. It’s lightweight, has a small footprint and is easy to use: Simply turn the dial to your desired temperature based on the recommendations printed on the lid and then plug it in to turn it on. Downside is it doesn’t have a timer so you’ll have to set a separate timer and check it periodically.

In addition to five trays (and the ability to stack up to 12), this dehydrator comes with two fruit leather sheets for semi solid foods, two small mesh screens for small ingredients like blueberries and herbs, and three spice packets for jerky. It also comes with a detailed instruction booklet filled with dehydrating tips, charts, recipes, suggestions for storing and craft ideas.

If you’re looking to dehydrate even more food at once, consider the Nesco Gardenmaster Pro that can handle up to 30 (!) trays at once.

10. Best Large Capacity Dehydrator

With fifteen square feet of dehydrating space, this is one of the bigger dehydrators in our roundup, perfect for large batches of dehydrating. This model features two dials, one for the temperature and one for the timer, with setting recommendations printed right on the unit. The trays are easy to insert. The door slides on and doesn’t fully seal, but we didn’t find that the opening affected performance. Excalibur dehydrators come with detailed instruction booklets with charts and recipes that we found very helpful and informative.

What to look for when shopping for a food dehydrator?

✔️Temperature range: A larger temperature range allows for more controlled dehydrating. Most of our picks go below 100℉, which is ideal for delicate items like herbs, and up to 160℉ or higher for safely making jerky. We typically like when the intervals are small and very specific, but keep in mind that intervals of one can be hard to program.

✔️Programmable timer: The most basic dehydrators turn on when they’re plugged in and off when unplugged, but the more common ones (and our favorites) have timers that turn the dehydrator off when done. A timer is handy for dehydrating overnight or when you’re not home so y0u don’t risk over-drying. Most can be programmed in one-hour intervals.

✔️Size: Dehydrators with a small footprint and a rectangular shape create more usable dehydrating area. Some round models have a hole in the center of each tray, which decreases the dehydrating area. Stackable trays increase the usable dehydrating area without adding to the footprint, and because food shrinks as it dries, more vertical space is essential to yield enough.

✔️Tray material: Trays are made of stainless steel or plastic, most of which is BPA-free. We tend to like the plastic ones, which we found to be more nonstick and easier to clean.

✔️Accessories: Most dehydrators come with a drip tray that doubles as a tray to make fruit leather. They also typically come with mesh screens for small items like blueberries or herbs.

What to Look for in a Food Dehydrator

Style

Dehydrators either have horizontal or vertical airflow. In horizontal airflow models, the heating element and fan are positioned on the side or back of the dehydrators. Vertical airflow models have the heating element and fan positioned at the bottom or top of the dehydrator.

According to Elizabeth L. Andress, PhD, professor emerita and extension food safety specialist at the University of Georgia, the advantages of a horizontal flow model are “reduced flavor mixture so several different foods can be dried at one time, all trays receive equal heat exposure, and juices or liquids do not drip down into the heating element.”

Vertical airflow models tend to be tougher to clean since bottom-oriented heating elements are more exposed to drips and bits of food. Mesh tray liners can help prevent pieces of food from falling to the bottom of your dehydrators.

Capacity

Dehydrating isn’t a fast process, so a larger-capacity machine can save you time if you have a lot of food to dry—though they also take up more space. Smaller units, on the other hand, work well for small batches and kitchens.

Number of Trays

When dehydrating a batch of food, you want to make sure your machine dries it all evenly. To ensure consistency, look for a model with more trays so you can space out your food as much as possible. Overlapping pieces of food or crowding the trays with too much food will result in inconsistent results.

Some dehydrators can fit only a handful of drying trays, while others allow you to stack up to 20 or more.

Temperature Range

Some dehydrators operate at a single temperature, while others have an adjustable temperature dial. Adjustable temperatures typically range from 80 up to 160 to 180 degrees Fahrenheit.

Being able to control the temperature may be desirable if you plan to dehydrate several different types of food and want more precision over the process. However, if you’re just getting started dehydrating your own snacks or only plan to dehydrate one or two types of food, a set temperature model makes the process even easier.

Timers and Auto-Shutoffs

“Often the completed drying time may occur during the night and a timer could turn the dehydrator off and prevent scorching,” says Andress. Depending on what you’re making and how often, you may want to pick a dehydrator with an auto-shutoff function.

Jerky

Because meat is more prone to spoiling than vegetables, not all food dehydrators are capable of drying it safely. If jerky-making is high on your list of priorities, it’s wise to make sure the machine you buy has a temperature range appropriate for drying meat.