It was not a pleasant experience, standing for nearly an hour in the kitchen
with tears streaming down my face – onions make me cry!
Hubby and I purchased a dehydrator not that long before he
died. We dried corn and celery, but
since then it has sat in storage and lately in a cupboard.
When I found onions on special at the supermarket I decided
it was time to try out the dehydrator again.
The onions were peeled and sliced into 5mm thin rings and
laid out on the trays. I didn’t need to
pre-treat them in any way, which was a bonus.
I set the machine at 50 degrees Celsius, the recommended
temperature for vegetables, and dried them for ten hours (turning them over
after four hours).
The house absolutely reeked of onions when I first started,
but the smell lessened as they dried – or perhaps we just got used to it!
They then sat overnight before I dried them a further three
hours, by which time they had become crisp and brittle enough to crumble in my
fingers.
Once the onion rings were cold I bagged them up and used a
heat-sealing gadget to remove all the air.
It was a bit tricky deciding on when to bag them. I wanted them completely cold so that they
wouldn’t sweat in the bag, but I also didn’t want them sitting in the open and possibly absorbing
moisture from the surrounding atmosphere.
Hopefully I got the timing right.
This bag contains about 500g (one pound) of fresh onions,
dehydrated and ready to use.
I tried eating one of
the rings. It still had the pungency of
onion (although not as strong) and was amazingly sweet.
It might make a good snack to chase away colds!
Margaret J
I would have been starving...smelling onions makes me hungry any time I smell them.
ReplyDeleteSo would you say that about 5 pounds of onions dried down to one pound?
ReplyDeleteI use my dehydrator mainly for apples come Fall. I'd like to try some other things but so far I seem unmotivated to try.
I started off with around three pounds of onions (it was just under 1.5kg). Years ago I dried apple rings and they made delicious snacks - I'll have to try that again.
DeleteI have never tried dehydrating onions. I bought mine for persimmons when we had a lot of them.
ReplyDeleteMy word that's hard core. F would not be without her dehydrator - it has been around the world with her - fruit primarily (bananas and mangoes being the household favs) - tomatoes, apricots of course, cherries recently, fruit leathers, meat and fish, but never onions. Friends of hers tried drying a bucket full of lemon juice once. They ended up with half a cup of flakes of the most intense lemon flavour you could imagine. That exercise must have been a bit like making salt from sea water.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you could batter and fry them? Onion rings are yummy.
ReplyDeleteI got rid of my dehydrator I found it very expensive to run as it took so long to do, the items I was doing could be frozen and as we have 2 freezers we have the space. My brother now uses it for some of his supplies for his 3D printer.
ReplyDeleteThat is a large dehydrator! Love that you used it for onions - it well could be a good way to stave off colds, to eat the dried onion. I love roasted onions because they are so sweet too.
ReplyDeleteStay safe
Blessings
Maxine
I never tried onions like that. We only make beef jerky with it.
ReplyDeleteActually I nearly forgot about the machine...
Hello, I do not have a dehydrator. My eyes would be hurting from the onions. Enjoy your day, happy weekend!
ReplyDeleteTen hours in the machine seems like a lot of energy to dehydrate onions. Years ago I had a friend who used to do it with fruit and whenever we went birding together he would bring a little bag for me. Delicious!
ReplyDeleteI went and looked up the energy use. It is a 500 watt machine so would cost around 12-15 cents an hour to run (probably less as it has a thermostat). I think I can handle that :)
DeleteI’ve never dehydrated anything deliberately. Interesting though.
ReplyDeleteHow would you use these dehydrated onions? Soups, stews etc?
ReplyDeleteI thought of soups and stews. Because they crumble well I am thinking I could also add them to things like scrambled egg and savoury scones. Time to experiment :)
DeleteNow there's something I've never tried.
ReplyDeleteI have one too we used to use it to make venison jerky:)
ReplyDeleteSounds delicious :)
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