How to Dry Fruit for Dried Orange Garland & More

If you’d like to know how to dry fruit for Christmas decorating, here is how I’ve dried oranges for years, and it’s super easy! You can easily dry sliced or whole oranges to craft Christmas decorations for ornaments, wreaths, garlands, and more. You’ll also see several ways you can use your dried fruit to decorate your home this Christmas.

Don’t you just love the smell of fruits and herbs during the holidays? I love to dry fruit and use it to create yummy smelling Garlands and Wreaths.

Today, I’m sharing how to dry sliced oranges, but this method works for Apples, Lemons, Limes, grapefruit, etc. In addition, I’ll share how to dry whole oranges for Christmas decorating.

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Materials to Dry Fruit

You don’t need a lot to dry fruit in an oven. Naturally, if you have a dehydrator, the process is simple; however, the oven works great, and your house smells wonderful.

Just determine what projects you want to use the dried fruit for this holiday and dry enough to accommodate these projects.

Medium size oranges, a baking sheet, parchment paper, and a mandolin for even slicing.

Set the mandolin at the #3 setting because you don’t want the orange slices to be overly thin.

Note: You can slice oranges with a knife, however, try to slice as evenly as possible so that they all dry at approximately the same rate.

Cover your baking sheet with parchment paper and spread the orange slices evenly over the sheet.

Bake Orange Slices Until Dry

Next, set your oven to bake at 200 degrees and place the orange slices in the oven for approximately 2 hours. Enjoy the fresh smell throughout the house!

After 2 hours, your oranges will be slightly smaller, as you can see here.

Prepare and Bake Again

At this point, your parchment paper may be damp or wet. If so, transfer your orange slices to a fresh sheet of parchment paper and flip the slices over to the other side.

Return to the oven and bake for another hour.

Finally, after 3 hours of baking, here is what your orange slices should look like.

How To Dry Oranges Whole

To dry oranges whole, takes a little more patience. The process is basically the same but you will need to have them in the oven for a longer period of time. This same process can be used for lemons and limes.

The first step is to slice the orange peel.

Use a sharp knife and slice through the orange peel but not the white pith. This is the white spongey part between the orange peel and the fruit.

Slice from top to bottom several times around the orange.

Add Whole Cloves (optional)

I like to add whole cloves to the orange for added fragrance and decoration. I’ve dried oranges without this option so it works well either way.

If you do want to add cloves, just press the pointed end of the clove into the oranges between the sliced areas.

Dry Whole Oranges

Place the sliced oranges on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Place in the oven at 200 degrees or the lowest setting. Bake for a minium of two hours. It will take longer than two hours to dry the oranges sufficiently, however, I like to keep an eye on them after the two hour point.

Continue to check them approximately every 30 minutes until they appear to be dried.

You can see what my oranges looked like when I removed them from the oven. You will also notice that I failed to leave enough of the pith in some areas and they split. They will still be fine for decorating but I prefer to see the white pith instead.

At this point, they will continue to dry. Leave them on your countertop or in a dry, cool place to allow more drying time. Place them so that air can circulate around each orange. Don’t put them into a bowl or container until they are 100% dry.

Fruit Dried for Holiday Projects

Here are some creative ways to use your orange slices. Use them on your Christmas Tree, make topiaries, string them together for a fun garland and so much more.

I have a small tree that I use on my kitchen island at Christmas. It is filled with dried orange slices and mini-cookie cutters in Christmas shapes.

You might also enjoy how to make tassels from jute and this cute ticking tassel garland. Both of these projects work well when making a dried fruit project.

Fresh Herb and Dried Fruit Garland

One of my favorite Christmas garlands is the Fresh Herb and Dried Fruit Garland. You can see how I update the garland each year on this tutorial.

You can see how I used them on the rosemary wreath at my kitchen window. In addition, the dried fruit garland includes both oranges and apples, which were dried with this same technique.

Topiaries with Dried Oranges

Here are two different DIY Topiary Tutorials to use dried fruit.

See this Foraged Christmas Topiaries Tutorial.

And this Real Cedar and Orange Topiaries tutorial.

Strings of popcorn are an age-old tradition at Christmas, and Yasminvink added dried orange slices to up the wow factor.

Simple rosemary, cloves, and pinecones combine for this simple but lovely garland by Elien at Home Grown Happiness.

Here is another simple dried orange slice garland by Jennifer Rizzo

I saw where Meeghan at Caligirlinasouthernworld is drying orange slices this holiday season as well. Here she has combined a lamb ear garland with dried orange slices. In addition, she adds a couple of slices to the faux cake top.

Here is another project from the holidays last year. For this project, I used a grapevine wreath, rosemary, and dried orange slices for a chair charm.

Do you have several out-of-date Christmas Décor items? See how to repurpose them to use this year.

Thanks for stopping by. I look forward to sharing my next adventure with you.

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