A Natural convection single pass mixed mode solar dehydrator (MMSD) with a regenerative heat storage system was modeled and manufactured with the 1 kg of loading quantity to examine the working for bitter gourd as a crop. This paper presents a performance comparison of different modes of collector configuration of absorber plate. The experiments were conducted with a crop having the water content (moisture) of 95% from this 0.9 kg of moisture must be removed until the 10% wet basis. The drying time and efficiency of the dryer were 12–14 h and 2.6–7.13%, respectively, using mixed mode without regeneration but these parameters were improved up to 8–10 h and 15–20%, respectively, using mixed mode with regeneration. The dried bitter gourd’s quality was more to conventional sun dehydrating.