The parameters of processing instant water chestnut was optimized with quality score and dehydration rate as indexes. The results showed that the sucrose concentration in impregnating solution was 15%, the ratio of water chestnut to impregnating solution was 1∶12 g/mL, impregnated for 9 h, dried at 60 ℃ for 2 h. The products instant water chestnuttasted sweet and crisp with light yellow surface, the quality score was 95.6 and dehydration rate was 10.5%. The floating range of the color difference was less than 2.5 and lustre value was 81.05 after storage for 60 days, the color and lustre of instant water chestnutwas basically stable.