I admit that I score pretty high on the list of crunchy. I bike everywhere, grow my own food and run a fermentation website. However, the idea of turning my kombucha SCOBYs into food was beyond me. So the credit for this recipe goes out to my friend Mark.
Mark brought me a large jar of jerky… and it was… amazingly tasty! Even my toddler couldn’t get enough of it! So I decided to serve it to my not-so-crunchy book club, and everyone wondered what type of meat it was. They all assumed that the kombucha part of the jerky was in the sauce!
It is a winner!
Officially kombucha SCOBYs are mostly cellulose, so the jerky is basically flavour, probiotics and fiber. But it’s a great way to use up those extra SCOBYs you may have kicking around!
PrintKombucha Scoby Jerky
This kombucha SCOBY jerky is flavourful and full of probiotics and fiber. It’s a great way to use up those extra SCOBYs you may have kicking around!
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 8 hours
- Total Time: 8 hours 15 minutes
- Yield: Serves 6-8 1x
- Category: Snacks
- Method: Dehydrated
Ingredients
- 5–6 thin kombucha SCOBYs (see notes for more info)
- 1 Tbsp grated ginger
- 1 Tbsp diced garlic
- 1/2 cup soya sauce
- 7 Tbsp honey
Instructions
- Cut the SCOBYs into strips, grease your dehydrator trays and lay out your SCOBYs.
- Dehydrate until most of the moisture is gone (about 4 hours at 105 F).
- Mix up the remaining ingredients into a marinade, and marinate your SCOBYs for 24 hours.
- Grease your dehydrator trays again. Fully dehydrate the SCOBYs at 105F for 8 hours.
- Store in airtight jars and consume within 1 month.
Notes
- The easiest way to harvest thin SCOBYs for this recipe is frequently harvest SCOBYs off of your brew. Alternatively you could try separating a thick SCOBY into layers, however, that is pretty difficult to do.
- If you aren’t a SCOBY growing person, you could simply sub-in thinly sliced firm tofu, for delicious tofu jerky.
- If you don’t happen to have a dehydrator
, you could use your oven set on it’s lowest temperature with a wooden spoon stuck in to keep the door propped open.
, you could use your oven set on it’s lowest temperature with a wooden spoon stuck in to keep the door propped open.Keywords: probiotic, SCOBY, reuse, free, vegetarian
Do you have an interesting recipe to share! I’m always looking for new ideas… and would love it if you could share, either in the comments section or on our Facebook page.
Danielle
July 2, 2015 at 11:13 amVery interesting! I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to force my extra scobies onto anyone who will take them. Glad to know there’s something else I can do with them, because I just can’t bring myself to compost them all!
Sal
April 28, 2016 at 1:02 pmMy oven only goes to 170°F, and I don’t have a dehydrator. Any suggestions or tips to make this work?
Emillie
April 28, 2016 at 1:25 pmMaybe heat your oven, then turn it off then put your jerky in to dry? If you have very thin slices of kombucha then it shouldn’t take too long.
Karin
May 2, 2016 at 10:02 amIf you have an 18quart cooker they some times go down far enough if not you can lift off the top to get the temp. I did this for yogurt in the past before I got mine.
Emillie
May 2, 2016 at 10:05 amDo you mean a slow cooker? Good idea! I haven’t tried it, but it certainly could work. You would definitely need to vent the lid so that the scoby can dry.
Mollie
October 6, 2016 at 8:32 pmI would add a little liquid smoke and worsteshire sauce.
Emillie
October 7, 2016 at 11:34 amSounds good! Neither of those things are in my pantry, so I didn’t think of them.
Angela Chen
July 12, 2017 at 12:54 pmHello I’m very interested in making Scoby jerky. I have the round dehydrator and was wondering how do you dehydrate the scobys without attracting flies?
Emillie
July 12, 2017 at 1:09 pmI always throw cheese cloth over the hole in the centre of my dehydrator to prevent bugs from getting into my food. Enjoy!
Sarah
October 7, 2017 at 2:49 pmany idea what the nutritional information for this might look like in terms of calories and proteins?
Emillie
October 9, 2017 at 7:06 amScobys are mostly cellulose, so it would just be fiber from the scoby side of things. There is honey and soy sauce so those would add calories, but I think it would be very little per piece of scoby.