Now that my onions have cured properly, it’s that
time to figure out how I would like to save them.
I sorted through my onions and determined I’m going
to save about ½ of my onions for storage, ¼ for freezing and canning (marmalade
and caramelized), and the remaining ¼ will be dehydrated.
This weekend, Bulldog Man and I decided to start
dehydrating the onions. Warning, before
cutting a large quantity of onions, please make sure to wear gloves, and eye
protection. Also don’t dehydrate onions
inside your home!!!!
I’m here to tell you, do not dehydrate onions inside your home, the smell is overpowering
and it will stay for days. We started with 8, which is the amount that
would fill the dehydrator.
I brushed the remaining soil off each onion, chopped
the ends, and peeled away the outer skin.
Then I handed each onion off to Bulldog Man to slice thinly on my Mandolin.
After slicing, we pulled apart the sliced pieces and laid them out on each
dehydrating tray.
Using an extension cord, we plugged in the
dehydrator and sat it outside on top of the gas stove (a future project….we will touch basis on this in a future post) to
start the dehydration process.
The dehydration process took approximately 12 to 14
hours. OMG…….
Talk about ode de onion smell………………..
You could smell onions for miles. While working outside in the garden and on
other projects, you would have thought onion rings were cooking…..Very strong
onion rings!!!
After the onions finished dehydrating, we placed
them in quart canning jar and vacuum canned each jar, for using in future meals
throughout the year.
I processed one jar of dehydrated onion pieces
through a coffee bean grinder and made onion powder (spice) for using on
roasts, or in meals where you would like the flavor of the onion but not the
onion.
** An electronic tool is not necessary to make onion
powder. A mortar and pestle will do the
same.
***To remove the onion smell from your hands wash
them with salt and warm water. Or soak
hands in either lemon juice or vinegar for approximately 2 to 3 minutes, then
wash normally.
Have you ever made onion powder yourself before?
