Dried Apricots (Khubani): Nutrition, Benefits, and Why Real Ones Aren't Bright Orange

Dried apricots (Khubani) are one of those dried fruits people underestimate — usually filed away as "just a sweet snack" rather than recognised for what they actually offer nutritionally, partly because most of what's sold commercially has been chemically treated to look better than it naturally does.

What's actually in a dried apricot

Drying concentrates everything a fresh apricot has — including its downsides in sugar content, so portion still matters — but per gram, dried apricots are a genuinely strong source of:

• Potassium — more per 100g than a banana, relevant for blood pressure regulation
• Vitamin A (as beta-carotene) — among the higher plant sources of it in a dried fruit
• Iron — meaningful for a plant-based source, though better absorbed alongside vitamin C
• Fibre, both soluble and insoluble, which is part of why apricots have a long traditional use as a mild digestive aid

The colour tells you how it was dried

A naturally sun-dried apricot is a dark, matte brown-orange — closer to the colour of the fruit's flesh once its natural sugars have caramelized slightly during slow drying in open air. The bright, almost fluorescent orange apricots sold in a lot of supermarkets get that colour from sulphur dioxide treatment, which also happens to strip out some of the natural flavour compounds along with extending shelf life. If a dried apricot looks like it's been dyed, it probably has been — with a sulphite treatment rather than actual dye, but the visual effect is the same kind of artificial uniformity.

How we dry ours

Our apricots are laid out and dried the traditional way in open air, no sulphur dip, which is why the batch you receive may vary slightly in shade from one order to the next — that's a feature of a real seasonal crop, not an inconsistency to worry about.

Try them yourself: Sun-Dried Apricots (Khubani).