I’m ready for fall. August is turning the corner from “I love summer!” to “Dear Lord, when will the summer end?” Apples are my gateway drug of choice when I’m leaning into the start of the autumn season.

Drying your own apples is a great way to preserve a surplus harvest and create a healthy snack with no preservatives. They’re a little soft and curl up as they dry, giving them an eye-appealing texture.

These can be eaten as a snack — or if you cut into small pieces, they can be used to make a tea or added to granola.

This recipe dates back to the Viking era (courtesy of Cara Watters) and it’s so easy that it barely needs instruction. I still found a way to screw it up, though, so I’ve added a little more information below.

The apple slices dry out by hanging on a string, and it’s important to create a space between each slice so they’ll have room to dry. BUT learn from my mistake!

In the photo above, I tried to ensure space by tying a knot around each slice. However, the string pulled through several slices within the first few hours, effectively cutting them loose and making the string hang lower as the knots tightened. The picture above was taken shortly after hanging them. Already, the string was hanging lower than I wanted but moving the string cut through a few more slices and knocked them down.

By Day 2, the string was hanging down so low that I had to re-string half of them and shorten the line. This seemed to work better, as I could space the slices apart from each other on the mostly horizontal line. 24 hours after slicing the apples, they were already starting to dry and curl, which is good.

Ingredients:
Granny Smith or sweet-tart apple variety (3 medium-sized apples makes about 2 cups of dried rings)

Core the apples and cut into thin slices, about 1/4-inch thick. Thread them onto string or a cane, allowing a small gap between each piece, but without tying knots around the slices.

Hang them somewhere warm, near a fire is ideal. Once the string is hung, you can work on spacing the slices out a bit from each other.

Dry for a few days or up to a week. (It took about 5 days when I dried these in August, so it would probably take less time in colder months when it’s less humid.)