It’s a Smelly Job – But Somebody Has to Do It!

Dehydrating Onions

One of the easiest foods to dehydrate is onions. I’ve just spent some time putting 15 medium onions through the process and believe me, it IS a smelly job. I just got a new dehydrator and I want to do as much food as possible in the fastest way I can. Onions take very little effort, and bring great rewards.

After watching lots of YouTube videos and reading several articles and chapters in books I discovered there are two main ways to process onions. First is to simply slice them thinly, spread them in a single layer on your dehydration sheets and dry them. The other way takes a bit more time and effort, but I think it turns out a much better product in the long run. That is the process we are going to look at in this blog post.

First, I chose some beautiful yellow and white onions, all about the same size.

I sliced them thinly with my trusty mandolin.

I kept the different types in separate bowls so they could be dried separately. Mine were sliced about 1/4 inch or so and separated into rings

Then I put the rings into boiling water and par-boiled them for one minute. (yes I did use a timer). As each minute came to an end I removed the rings to a colander and rinsed them in cool water. I set them in the sink to let the extra water drain away.

Once the rings were drained well I spread them on the individual dehydrator sheets. It isn’t necessary to keep them from touching if you have parboiled them, just make sure each tray has onion rings spread thinly.

I placed the trays into the dehydrator set my temp for 175 and time for 12 hours. I closed the door and just walked away, after all I was not only dehydrating onions, I was also preparing this post, and didn’t want to look like a total novice.

Once 6 hours had passed I couldn't stand the wait and I took the cover off and slid out a tray. The rings were drier, but still pretty soft, so back in they went for some more time. Finally, after a full 12 hours I thought things would be wonderful, and now I could pack my onions in glass jars, vacuum pack them and put them on the shelves of my pantry to proudly display them to all who wanted to see.

But NOOOO!!! The onion rings were dried all right, but not brittle, so back into the dehydrator for another 3 hours.

Finally a total of 15 hours had passed and I could wait no longer. When I checked them again the rings were brittle and dry as a bone. Yippee!!!! Here they are! Aren’t they beautiful???

Once the onions are thoroughly dried, they can be processed several different ways,. First they can be vacuum packed, or they can be placed into a grinder like a coffee grinder, a blender or a spice grinder and powdered. Then they can be stored in a shaker bottle and used in oh so many ways.