How to Make Homemade Raisins

Making raisins at home is a great way to use up extra grapes or revamp your favorite Thanksgiving recipes! Compared to store-bought raisins, you will find that oven-dried grapes create larger, plumper, and juicier raisins and their flavor is more intense. Throw them into salads, add them to baked treats, or use them to garnish desserts like our Tea-Infused Chia Pudding or Coconut Black Rice Pudding.

Oven-Dried Grapes (a.k.a. Delicious Homemade Raisins!)

Oven-drying grapes to make your own raisins may seem a bit overkill, but these raisins aren’t at all like the packaged kind. Homemade raisins come out with a flavor that is more concentrated and closer to that of fresh grapes than a fully dehydrated raisin. Oven-drying them also gives you control over the level of dryness.

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Tips for Making Raisins at Home

  • Choose seedless grapes
  • Choose your favorite type of grape or use a variety for a range of flavors and colors
  • Rinse your grapes well and remove stems (optional)
  • Bake your grapes at around 225°F. You can use a higher temperature for drier raisins, though we do not recommend baking them at temperatures over 300°F.

 

Homemade Raisins Recipe

Oven-dried red seedless grapes on parchment paper.

Delicious homemade raisins!

Ingredients:

  • 3-5 large bunches of grapes

Instructions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 225°F.
  2. Rinse your grapes and then spread out the grape bunches on a parchment-lined rimmed baking sheet.
  3. Bake until grapes are nicely shriveled and semi-dried, about 4 hours (see notes below).
  4. Let the grapes cool and store.

Notes:

  • The exact cooking time can vary depending on the size of the grapes and your preferred level of dryness. It is best to check in on the progress of the grapes periodically.
  • Dried grapes can be refrigerated in a sealed container for about 2-3 weeks. The drier grapes, the longer the shelf life will be.
Washed red grape bundles on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper.

We choose red seedless grapes but feel free to experiment with black or green grapes.
Shriveled and dried red grapes that have been baked to become "raisins."

After about 4 hours of baking, we have incredibly plump and juicy homemade raisins!
Washed red grape bundles on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper.

We choose red seedless grapes but feel free to experiment with black or green grapes.
Shriveled and dried red grapes that have been baked to become "raisins."

After about 4 hours of baking, we have incredibly plump and juicy homemade raisins!