Bitter gourd is an important vegetable crop of I ndian subcontinent. Osmo-air drying can be adopted on large scale to preserve the quality of bitter gourd. Comparative osmotic diffusion treatment in sorbitol followed by drying at 60°C resulted in blackening of dried bitter gourd slices. Minimum (4.32/5.21 g water/g d.m.) moisture content in bitter gourd slices was attained after 11.67% sodium chloride/sorbitol diffusion for 90 min at 60°C, while maximum (15.48/17.24 g water/g d.m) moisture content in bitter gourd slices was obtained at 0.34% of sodium chloride/sorbitol after osmotic diffusion at 40°C for 90 min. The dehydration rate in bitter gourd slices was reduced from 1.87 to 1.21 and 1.31 to 1.01 g water/min/1 00g dry matter during drying of first 30 min to one hour in osmo-air dried and control bitter gourd slices, respectively.
