How to Make Dried Orange Peel (and a Tea Recipe)

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Have some extra orange peels and don’t want to make them go to waste? Make your own dried orange peel for recipes, cleaning, and teas!

How to Dry Orange Peels

Dried Orange Peel

I recently bought a large bulk amount of oranges as I promised my youngest son that we would make orange juice if I found a good sale. Not long after I told him that, I found a great deal on some no-spray oranges! I’ve really gotten into herbal teas lately and I’ve been needing some dried orange peel for the blend that I enjoy. But did you know it’s $18 a pound?? A little out of my budget. Luckily, it’s super easy to make your own!

Jucing Oranges

Be sure and wash your oranges well. You will want to use no-spray, no wax oranges to make dried orange peels.

When you decide you want to make dried orange peel, don’t forget about the best part of the orange, the inside! I used my simple little Juiceman Citrus Juicer to juice all of my oranges first. I use this simple method for Preserving Orange Juice or I place in jars and freeze.

Orange Peels

Once you’ve juiced your oranges, you should have plenty of peels left! If you’ve decided not to juice your oranges and are just using those that you are eating, just be sure and save the peels.

Peeling Oranges

Once you’ve juiced your oranges, dig your finger under the leftover pulp and begin to peel the leftovers out of the inside. If you get your finger in just the right place, the insides will come right out.

Cutting Orange Peels

Dice up your orange peel. I plan on using mine for tea so I just need it to fit in my tea infuser ball. You will want to cut your peel in the size that you need. I use my Rada Cutlery for everything in my kitchen! 🙂

Drying Orange Peel

Spread the orange peels out on the dehydrator and dry for at least 5-8 hours or until completely dry.

Dried Orange Peels

Store the dried orange peels in an air-tight container. I like to use half gallon size glass jars for storing teas and things like this.

Uses for Dried Orange Peel

Since this orange peel contains the pith it will have a hint of bitterness and might not be the best for use in certain recipes where you are looking for the sweet orange taste. To get that flavor, you will want to peel your oranges with a veggie peeler so that you don’t have as much “white stuff”.

You can dry this orange peel in the oven if you don’t have a dehydrator. Just place in the oven at the lowest temp it will go (preferably around 150 degrees) and keep a close eye on it until dried.

If you don’t want to dry orange peel, you can use it as a wonderful cleaner. Just place the cleaned peels into a jar of vinegar and let it sit in the cupboard for a few weeks. After that, remove the peels and mix with water to create your cleaner.

You can use your dried orange peel to make an easy body scrub. Just pulse it a few times in the blender (some pieces are ok) and mix with a bit of coconut oil (or your favorite oil) and some scrub until a nice scrub comes together.

You can also make some tasty infusions if you love cooking with orange flavor. Drop some dried orange peels into vinegar or oil and let the mixture sit for several weeks until flavorful.

Making a refreshing bath salt is easy with the dried orange peel. Just pulse in the blender to finer pieces and mix with epsom salts in a 4:1 ratio (ie: 1 cup of epsom salt to 1/4 cup orange peel).

And of course, who can forget about potpourri? Blend your oranges with other dried items and sprinkle with a few drops of sweet orange essential oil to boost the scent. Beautiful and practical!

Orange Peel Tea

Tea Made with Orange Peel

I love herbal teas! I especially love when I can make my own blends. You can try adding dried orange peel to a variety of blends but this simple one is my favorite.

Fruity Tea Blend

Blend the ingredients together in a medium-sized bowl and store in a glass pint jar. Place about a teaspoon of the mixture into a tea infuser and steep in hot water for about 4 minutes.

This tea is high in vitamin C and has a deliciously tangy, fruity flavor. Perfect for mid-morning or a mid-afternoon pick me up!

Have you ever dried orange peels? What do you use them for?

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23 Comments

  1. This weekend I made Orange Peel powder. I used my vegatable peeler to remove the pith and then scrapped any that remained with my paring knife. I put the pieces on a parchment lined baking sheet at the lowest setting on my oven until the pieces were dry. I let them cool and put them in my coffee grinder. Behold Orange Peel Powder.

    1. I grew up with candied orange peel every Christmas. Then with the remaining syrup we added cinnamon and made candied walnuts! Oh how I loved them!

  2. Hey Merissa,

    I love you’re blog!!! Thanks or link the jars too 🙂 do you ever have trouble with your kiddos and glass? We’re trying to ditch plastic and people keep asking me about the safety of kids and glass…

    1. I keep most of my glass jars up higher and if they do help me carry them into the kitchen or something we just work on carrying them slowly with both hands. So far we haven’t broken one yet. I do have plastic things for some of the items that the kids are rougher on like their cups 🙂

    2. Anything that had been plastic, we switched to using all glass. We use glass glasses even, not the glass jars that are more heavy duty. My kids were 3 and 6 at the time. They are now 6 and 9.
      The nice thing about glass is that you can write everyone ‘s name on their cup with a Sharpie marker. The glasses sit in a row and we can grab it whenever we want a drink throughout the day. The Sharpie comes off with soap.
      When it comes to unloading the dishwasher, I generally try to put away all the glass pyrex bowls and baking dishes that are on the higher shelves.
      I have mini tea cups that are very old and my youngest uses them more than anyone.
      Ironically it is the parents and grandparents or the dishwashing machine when not packed properly by certain adults that have broken far more drinking glasses than the children.
      We also each have a double insulated stainless steel thermos for water when outside or traveling. They can handle more abuse.
      However if you choose to use these with meals, you will want to toss them into the dishwasher frequently as the food wash back will start growing friends.

  3. Now when you come up with dark chocolate covered orange peel, I will be ever so happy 🙂 🙂
    This was awesome and I thank you, now to get enough orange peels to warrant a dehydrator
    Have a great day 🙂

  4. One more amazing use for dried orange peel is if you have a fire place or stove you burn wood in. When the fire is struggling to ignite or has died down too much to get going again, throw in a hand full of dried orange peels and watch it ignite the flame again. It also releases a lovely light orange fragrance in the house.

  5. Wow, my neighbors have three orange trees and after eating them and using the juice- I never thought about using the peels. Thanks for the great ideas!

  6. I have recently started using Hibiscus for heart and blood pressure health and this recipe for tea sounds AMAZING! I can’t wait to try it! Thanks Merissa!

  7. I was wondering where or how you found “no-spray” oranges. I’d like to get some myself. Did you have them shipped to you or do you live in an area that has oranges locally?