• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Healthy Canning
  • Home
  • Recipes
    • Recipes by category
    • Recipe Index
    • Drying food
    • Other online sources
  • Equipment
    • General Equipment
    • Pressure Canning
    • Steam Canning
    • Water bath canning
    • Food Dehydrators
  • Learning
    • Learn home canning
    • Home Canning Safety Topics
    • Unsafe home canning practices
    • Home canning concepts
    • Ingredients for home canning
    • Issues in home canning
    • Learning resources
  • Contact
    • Sitemap
    • About
    • Contact Page
    • FAQ
    • Media
    • Copyright
    • Privacy
    • Terms of Use
menu icon
go to homepage
search icon
Homepage link
  • Recipes
  • Equipment
  • Learning
×

Home / Dehydrating / Drying Onion

Drying Onion

Filed Under: Dehydrating, Seasonal Fall Tagged With: Onions

Onions are one of easiest things to dry, and yield one of the highest quality dried products to boot. So it’s no surprise that they’re also one of the foods most commonly dried.

Dehydrate in a well-ventilated area (or away from where you are) if possible, as the “aroma” can be eye-watering. Some people even keep a separate dehydrator for drying onions and garlic.

See also: Drying Leeks, Onion Powder

Contents hide
  • 1 Yields and Equivalents
  • 2 Directions
    • 2.1 Ball Blue Book
    • 2.2 Excalibur
    • 2.3 So Easy To Preserve
  • 3 Notes
  • 4 Storage
  • 5 Usage notes

Yields and Equivalents

  • 1 medium fresh onion = 1 cup (150 g / 5 oz) fresh = ¼ cup (30 g / 1 oz) dried minced onion = 1 ½ tablespoons onion powder [1]So Easy to Preserve, 2014, page 364
  • 20 lbs (9.1 kg) of peeled onion will dry down to 3 lbs (1.3 kg) [2]Ball Blue Book, 2014, page 163.
  • 1 cup dried onion = 120 g / 4 oz
  • 1 x 10 lb (4.5 kg) bag of fresh onion, unpeeled = 9 standard Excalibur trays of fresh onion, peeled and sliced = 12 cups dried onion slices = 4 ½ cups (400 g) minced onion

Directions

Here we compare directions from three different sources.

Note the wide range of suggested drying temperatures.

Ball Blue Book

Preparation: Trim ends off onions, peel off paper shell, cut into slices ¼ inch (5 mm) thick.

Blanching: None

Temperature: 145 F / 62 C (sic)

Time: Until crisp.

Notes: “Choose red, white, or yellow onions; white varieties dry best.”

Water content: 89%. (Used if doing a Dehydration Weight Test.)

Reference: Ball Blue Book, 37th edition, 2014. Page 167.

Notes: In the Ball All New, they suggest slicing or dicing. The suggested drying temperature is lower: 125 F / 52 C. [3]2016 edition, page 339.

Excalibur

Preparation: “Remove the root and top, and peel off the paper shell. Cut the onion into ¼″ (5 mm) slices or ⅛″ (2 to 3 mm) rings or chop it. No pretreatment is required.”

Blanching: None.

Temperature: 155 F / 68 C

Time: “Until leathery.” Time estimate is 4 to 8 hours, depending on humidity in your area.

Quality: Excellent

Notes: “Onions are excellent when dehydrated, particularly varieties such as White Bermuda, Red Creole, Downing Yellow Globe, Southport White Globe, Southport Red Globe, Sweet Spanish, and White Creole. Onions should be heavy for their size and have a pungent taste and aroma. Because of this odour, however, avoid drying them with other vegetables.”

Reference: Excalibur. Preserve it naturally. 4th edition, 2012. Page 26 and 56.

So Easy To Preserve

Preparation: “Wash, remove outer ‘paper shells.’ Remove tops and root ends, slice ⅛ to ¼ inch thick.”

Blanching: None

Temperature: 140 F / 60 C

Time: 3 to 9 hours.

Quality: Good to excellent

Reference: So Easy To Preserve. 6th Edition. 2014. Page 350.

Onions on drying tray

Onions on drying tray

Notes

To reduce drying time and for more even results and better quality, when feasible, rotate trays 90 degrees every hour or so, or, rotate them 180 degrees halfway through drying,

A mandolin or food processor can be ideal for evenly cut slices.

It’s okay if they touch a bit on the trays, as the pieces will shrink away from each other as they dry, but don’t heap them on in layers.

If you prepped more than you have the trays for at one time, store the onion in a well-sealed container in the fridge for up to 3 days, and dry as dehydrator tray space becomes available.

Storage

Let the dehydrated product cool completely to room temperature before packing it into storage containers.

Watch the sealed containers for the first few days for any sign of condensation. If condensation occurs, dehydrate a bit more.

Label jar with name of product and date. Store away from heat and direct light.

Usage notes

Use dried onion as seasoning in dishes.

To rehydrate, to each 1 cup dried onion pieces add 2 cups (500 ml / 16 oz) boiling water. Let stand for a minimum of ¾ hour. [4]SETP, 2014, page 363 The rehydrating water has excellent flavour for use as a cooking liquid in other dishes.

When using in recipes such as soups or stews that have a lot of liquid in them and are long cooking, many people say they just toss the dried onion directly in. However, for drier recipes, you’ll certainly always want to rehydrate first for sure.

You can also use your food processor to chop the dried onion pieces into onion flakes, or a mill to grind it into onion powder.

References[+]

References
↑1 So Easy to Preserve, 2014, page 364
↑2 Ball Blue Book, 2014, page 163.
↑3 2016 edition, page 339
↑4 SETP, 2014, page 363
Tagged With: Onions

Filed Under: Dehydrating, Seasonal Fall Tagged With: Onions

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Karen

    August 30, 2022 at 3:16 pm

    should the onions be crispy, or leatherly?

    Reply
    • Healthy Canning

      August 30, 2022 at 5:58 pm

      Speaking from bitter experience, aim for leathery. If you aim for crispy, you risk the sugars in the onions burning and going bitter from excessive heat exposure.

      Reply
      • Karen

        August 30, 2022 at 6:47 pm

        thank you. I will do that.

        Reply
  2. kimmy

    May 30, 2018 at 12:33 pm

    how do you keep onions white.mine turn brown before they are done…

    Reply
    • Healthy Canning

      June 19, 2018 at 8:23 pm

      If the heat in a dehydrator is too high, it can cause them to carmelize. I had that problem when I started with a less expensive dehydrator that didn’t allow temperature control. Browning may also depend on the exactly variety of onion being dried: how much sugar content it has.

      Reply
If you need FAST or relatively immediate canning help or answers, please try one of these Master Food Preserver groups; they are more qualified than we are and have many hands to help you. Many of them even operate telephone hotlines in season.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

SEARCH

HealthyCanning is a sub-project of cooksinfo.com. Read More…

What's New in Home Canning

What's New in Home Canning

Quote of the day

“Cooking is an art…. Preservation of food is a science.”

— Mrs Hugh S. Orem, A Revolution in the Kitchen. National Canners’ Association. 1910.
Photo of miscellaneous canning equipment
kitchen window with fruit bowl
Ship with lifeboats
Ingredients for home canning
Home canning learning resources
what is pressure canning. Photo of pressure canners
Steam canning
water bath canning

Footer

↑ back to top

About

  • About this site
  • Privacy Policy
  • Copyright
  • Terms & Conditions

Newsletter

  • Sign Up! for emails and updates

Contact

  • Contact
  • Media
  • FAQ

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases at no cost to you.

Copyright © 2021