Making Your Own...Onion Powder

 Last year, Not of This World, posted an article on making homemade french fried onions. This year, not only did she make more french fried onions, she also experimented with producing her own onion powder. The onion powder has been just as successful.

Here at Abundance, the flavor of the onion is enjoyed, but the texture isn't a fave. Biting into a semi-crunchy piece of onion, I'm shuddering as I think about it. The solution? onion powder! The process is very simple. Here's the scoop:

1. Wash and peel onions
2. Slice thin, a mandolin slicer works great for this. Wearing goggles is recommended for this.
3. Place onion on trays of dehydrator.
4. Place dehydrator on table outside! (Highly recommended - just take our word for this one)
5. When onions have dried completely, place in blender and grind into powder.
6. Pour powder into container of choice. Another use for those recycled jars:)

After several months of using the first batch and making another, we have learned a few things. First things first, homemade onion powder is stronger in potency than that from the store. Use less, much less. Because homemade onion powder is free of preservatives, it will clump. Scraping desired amount of powder off lightly with a utensil or shaking the container really hard loosens it up and has given us great results. Having healthy, preservative and chemical free onion powder with superior flavor to cook with more than makes up for such a minor inconvenience. The final thing we have discovered is that just as there is a difference in flavor between varieties of fresh onions, onion powder made from different varieties also contains a distinct difference in flavor.

Oh yes, please dehydrate using an actual dehydrator, for safety purposes. Once an onion has been cut, it immediately begins to absorb germs and bacteria. Leaving cut onions out in an open area to dry is not considered healthy or safe. Because of this, onions left out in a bowl or on a plate work well as air purifiers during cold and flu season. Beware as they can turn really ucky looking.

Finally, unless you want your entire house, person, clothing, belongings to smell of onion for days and days, don't forget to place the dehyrdator in a location OUTSIDE of the house!!! Also, if it is outside near the back door, DON'T open the window on the door. Odor of onion will blow through the house in a very NON refreshing wave. Laughing out loud as I remember.