We bought 7 three pound bags of Vidalia onions and I had a 5 pound bag of them here already so yesterday I used the 7 bags we bought on Tuesday and almost the whole 5 pound bag I had here to get onions ready for the freeze dryer.
I cut the ends off, cut the onions in half, then sliced them into fairly thick – maybe a little over 1/4″ slices. I put them in three different
I used the crock pot and two Instant Pots on the slow cooker setting and cooked them down for about 8 hours. I was actually really surprised at how much liquid cooked out of them. I removed them with a slotted spoon, trying to leave as much liquid behind as I could, then put them in cast iron Dutch ovens and cooked them on the stove to try to dry out some of the liquid.
25 pounds of onions only filled up three freeze dryer trays! I could have spread them a little thinner and filled all four trays probably but I keep bags of frozen mixed veggies in the freezer and use those to fill up trays when I have nothing else waiting to be freeze dried.
Last night I took a load of celery out of the freeze dryer so I let it defrost overnight. The onions and veggies are in the fridge freezer downstairs. It may forever smell like onions. I’m just hoping when I put these in the freeze dryer, we don’t have to evacuate the house because of the onion smell!
It will be nice to have Vidalia onions that are freeze dried to use throughout the year.
Kathleen -Robin says
Oh my that is one heck of a lot of work that you have done with those onions. But it was indeed a great price.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
We’ll see how nice it is to have them but at this point, I don’t think I’d do it again.
RuthW in MD says
My mother-in-law once told me about dehydrating onions with a daughter-in-law. They used the oven to dry out the onions after preparing them. She said that they smelled Absolutely TERRIBLE the entire time they were dehydrating!! I sure hope freeze drying is much easier on the noses in your house.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
The freeze dryer is good about not letting odors escape. Everything is sealed since it works off a vacuum. Once I release the vacuum and the ice starts melting (water from the onions), I’m sure we’ll smell it.
Pamela Papazidis says
Whenever I chop onions and pop them in the freezer for future use, they seem to lose their flavor. What else should I be doing?
judy.blog@gmail.com says
I’ve heard that happens. I’ve freeze dried them before and they seem to be fine. I’ve never dehydrated them but I’ve heard they lose their flavor similar to freezing. Not sure what would work best. When I cooked them down, SO MUCH water cooked out. You’d think that was a heck of a lot of flavor that went to waste. I almost froze it in small containers but had too much else going on that day.
Maybe someone else will see this who has better advice.