In this work, the model of the rate of water removal in a stage of a modular vegetables drier, proposed by the authors in a former work (Pelegrina, A., Elustondo, M. P., & Urbicain, M. J., 1998. Design of a semi-continuous rotary drier for vegetables. Journal of Food Engineering, 37, 293-304) is applied to simulate the effect of the air recirculation rate on the unit performance, in particular the time taken and the heat requirements to attain a given final solid water content. Experimental data was obtained previously in the equipment described the cited work (Pelegrina et al., 1998) consisting of a rotary drying device made of two concentric wire mesh cylinders, located in a closed box where hot air is blown. The drier cage has specially designed vanes and baffles to induce the solid circulation, In this work the air heat and mass balances equations, together with the drying velocity equation are solved so that the complete operation can be simulated for any working time, if the initial conditions are known. The simulation assumes that part of the exhaust air is made to recycle and mix with the fresh air supply in controlled proportions, such that the conditions of the gas mixture blown to the drier can be set and the influence of the amount of air recycled on the drier performance is calculated. It is shown that there is, for given working conditions, an optimal mixing proportion which makes the energy delivered a minimum. It is also shown the influence of the recycle on the final water contents if the drying time is the independent variable.