4. Conclusions
Dehydration of strawberries by microwave-assisted heating under
vacuum conditions was able to create the highest water flux out of the
product. This dryingmethod results into an elastic product of improved
mechanical resistance, showing only a slight loss of color and an appropriate
rehydration performance. Preliminary dehydration techniques
making use of hot air or sucrose solution did not improve most of the
quality attributes, neither the drying rate of strawberries. The temperature
of the drying processwas a critical factor that affected the quality of
microwave dried strawberries in terms of rehydration, color, shrinkage
and microstructure.