Freeze Dried Corned Beef & Cabbage Stew in Harvest Right Home Freeze Dryer

We spent a whole day preparing three BIG batches of Corned Beef & Cabbage stew, and then freeze dried it in our Harvest Right home freeze dryer.

For our first freeze-dry batch of Corned Beef & Cabbage Stew, we inadvertently overloaded the vegetable trays, so each batch took over 48 hours to fully dry in the freeze dryer. On the second batch, EpicenterBryan let it go through a 24-hour cycle, and then split the vegetables to cover three trays rather than two, and the batch freeze dry time was much more reasonable. Next time we know...

After the Freeze Dry Process...

All in all, were very happy with the broth and the vegetables, but the corned beef was a bit tough — not at all like it was straight from the pressure cooker. Perhaps the beef in the other cans will not be quite as tough. But next time, we'll cut the beef into smaller chunks prior to freeze drying.

We packed our loot in a total of five #10 cans with our new (used) toy — a Can Sealer!

The Corned Beef & Cabbage Stew Recipe

This recipe came with our new pressure cooker*, and it's one we will definitely use again!

We were amazed that a 5-pound batch of corned beef only took 1 hour to cook in the pressure cooker, and the vegetables only took 2 minutes (once the cooker reached full pressure)!

• 4-5 lbs Corned Beef Brisket
• 1 Onion, chopped
• 1 tablespoon Pickling Spice (included with brisket)
• 1 Medium Head Cabbage, chopped
• 6 Carrots, cut into 1/2" pieces
• 8 Small Red Potatoes, quartered
• 2 Turnips, cut into 3/4" dices
• 1 Rutabaga, cut into 3/4" dices