Friday, July 24, 2009

Too many green onions (scallions)

I finally had to pull my green onions, they were getting quite thick, the green was starting to yellow and they were way too strong to have in a salad. I started substituting green onions for regular yellow onions but I still had too many.

As I was pulling them I tried to figure out what to do with them and I came up with the idea of drying them. Not a new idea by any means but new to me. I didn't have a chance to browse the Internet for the "how tos" of drying green onions so I just winged it.

I cleaned them and sliced them fairly thin, then dried them in a tea towel and they onto a cookie sheet. I tried to dry them in a cold oven but it was taking too long so I turned the oven to warm, about 180F for about 5 hours. Still not dry enough but way too hot during the day to have the oven on. I turned the oven on again in the evening at the same temp for about 3 hours, still not dry enough but I'd had enough. The next day was sunny but cool and chose this day for my baking. When I turned the oven off, I would put the onions in, this worked really well and they dried out enough for storing. They are sweet and really crunchy, the color is not as vibrant as as the freeze dried veggies you get in a dry veg soup mix but much tastier.

Drying on a cookie sheet.





Finished product.





And I used about a 1/4 cup of dried onions to make ham, onion, garlic and cheese biscuits for breakfast this morning, superb.


6 comments:

Scrappy quilter said...

What a great way to use them up rather than not. I'm going to try drying onions this summer. Great job!!

SuburbanGardener said...

The is a good idea. We had too many onions too, and took them to share with office mates. Why do they sell the sets in bags of 100? Just too many for us. :)
SG

Powell River Books said...

I'll have to give that a try when I get back to the cabin if my green onions survive. I pulled my red onions and they were large enough to hang and dry, but my green bunching onions have seen their best days. As hot as it's been I bet they would dry on their own on the deck (just kidding). - Margy

Toni said...

oooo... yummy!

What a great idea... to dry your green onions!

The Hobbit said...

Oh those biscuits sound like a great treat.Makes my tummy rumble just thinking about it

burneggroll said...

Oven drying seems impossible. It either cooks the onion, or takes days.

Sun dried is easy. Just put a layer of chopped green onions in a baking tray out in the morning sun and by nightfall, they are dry!

Something about the moisture being able to escape, rather being trapped in the oven.