Several questions were asked in the post about dehydrating onions.
1. What size do I chop them?
You can see in the photo below, with the penny for comparison. You can see that the holes in the tray liner are not very large at all. The onions look huge compared to storebought green onions but these are home grown and quite tender.
Chopped Green Onions
In this full shot of one of the trays, you can see how I spread the onions out. The biggest problem for me is that since I do this out on the porch, if there’s any wind at all . . and there’s always wind here, they almost blow away before I get them into the bowl.
Onions
2. Can these be stored in bags instead of jars?
Yes, I’m sure they can – especially if you’re using Foodsaver bags and vacuum sealing them. They will last a lot longer if the air has been vacuumed out of them. Maybe it’s just how I think but it seems more economical to use jars because they can be used over and over and over and if there’s ever a time when we can’t get supplies, having the jars and a good supply of lids makes better sense to me.
I have not had good luck vacuum sealing with the Tattler reusable lids. I love them for canning but not for vacuum sealing.
The stand alone, hand held jar sealer is less than $20 at Amazon. There’s also a “lid” that fits over the whole jar top that is needed for this to work. I do not have good luck with the wide mouth attachment. It seems too loose and I have a hard time getting it to seal and I’ve heard others have the same problem. I never have a problem with the regular mouth jars . . they seem to work perfectly every time.
3. So I dehydrate the white part (or bottom) of the onion?
No, I’m dehydrating onion tops from my garden. I leave the bottoms in and sparingly cut the tops. Even though the bottoms get their nourishment from the tops, so long as I don’t cut them back too closely, the bottoms will continue to grow. It won’t be long before the grasshoppers will move in and overnight, they will destroy all of the onion tops but the bottoms will be fine and will keep for quite a while in the dirt. Also, except for the hottest part of the summer, onions do fairly well here . . except for the grasshoppers. There are enough onion bottoms in the garden now to last me til I can get more planted in late summer and have them ready to harvest in the fall. So, to answer the question, I don’t dehydrate the white parts of the onion unless I have so many that I will not be able to use them before they go bad.
4. Do I ever dehydrate scallions or chives?
No . . to me a chive is for dainty food and we don’t eat a lot of dainty food around here. Plain old onions tops work just fine for us.
Judy D in WA says
My wider mouth attachment works better than my regular one. Weird….for me, probably operator error. 🙂
Your onion tops look oh so pretty.
Karen says
one thing to remember if you are drying onions – your readers might not want to dry them in the house – the smell can really get bad in a small area! I like that you do yours on the porch – that is what i do too
Diana in RR,TX says
I don’t have a problem with my wide mouth attachment either. Once in a great while I have to redo it, the lid comes off with the attachment, but it usually works with no problem. Haven’t used my regular one-most of the jars I use are the wide mouth variety! Was looking at the Ball brand jars for dried herbs today. I can usually keep my herbs growing over the winter months although this past winter I lost my Thai basil and most of my hot spicy oregano. New ones growing. Oh yes, my saffron crocus finally died off-now we shall see when it starts to come up again!