DIY Dried Minced Onion

Learn how to make your own dried minced onion in a dehydrator! Organic dried minced onion can be pricey, and hard to find. Thankfully, it's super easy to make your own when onions are on sale!

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I usually grow enough onions and garlic to get us through the first half of the winter. But I always, always wish I'd grown more. So last summer, when our local orchard let me know they were selling excess organic onions in bulk, for really cheap, I jumped at the chance to snag half a bushel of them.

All of the most perfect onions I set aside to cure for storage, and along with the onions I was already growing, I knew they'd be plenty to get me through the winter this year.

Any onions that had nicks or cuts or blemishes, I put up for winter in other ways. First, I made a big batch of homemade onion powder. I love having plenty of this on hand. It's such a must-have, not only as an individual spice in things like chili and meatloaf, but also for making so many of my favorite homemade spice mixes and rubs.

The rest of the onions got chopped up for dried minced onion. This is so easy to make--even easier than onion powder. And dried minced onions are a rockstar in the kitchen for adding to soups, cooking with beans, making dips, adding to curries, and so much more.

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How to make dried minced onion

1. Start by dicing your onions.

Dice them just as you normally would--there's no need to make them extra tiny, like the dried onion flakes you buy. They're going to really, really shrink as they dry, and will end up looking just like what you buy in the store.

I find that about 1 diced medium onion can fit well onto a dehydrator tray.

2. Spread the diced onion on dehydrator trays.

If you have a fruit leather sheet for your dehydrator tray, you'll want to use this to prevent the diced onion from falling through the tray, as it dries. If you don't have a fruit leather sheet, you can line the tray with parchment paper, and that will work just as well.

3. Dehydrate at 135 degrees, for 4-6 hours.

When onion pieces are completely dry and brittle, they’re ready.

4. Cool and store.

Allow the dried onion to fully cool, before putting it away. Once it's fully cool, store in tightly covered jars. As with all spices, being stored in a cool, dry place, out of direct sunlight, is best.

How do you use dried minced onion?

You really can use dried onion in almost any way that you use fresh onion. But--a little goes a long way. The general rule is that a mere 2 Tablespoons of dried minced onion equals a full half cup of fresh onion.

If you're adding it to something that cooks for a long time, like soup, curries, or chowder, you can just dump it right in the way you usually would.

If it's something that cooks quickly (like an egg scramble or frittata, for example), you'll want to rehydrate the onion flakes in water for a few minutes. It doesn't take long, even ten minutes is enough.

Dried onion flakes can also be an excellent addition, just the way the are, to things like

• Salad dressings
• Meatloaf and meatballs
• Onion dip
• As a salad topping
• As a casserole topping

Can you make dried minced onion in the oven?

You bet! Instead of spreading the diced onion on dehydrator trays, spread it over a parchment-lined baking sheet. Place in you oven on the lowest setting (may ovens don't go lower than about 200 degrees.) Start checking the onions after the first hour, and continue checking every 20 minutes until they're fully dry. They won't take as long to dry in the oven, as they would in a dehydrator. Cool and store the same as usual.

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At the end of the day, I ended up making 2.5 quarts of dried onion flakes. You would THINK that would have lasted me an eternity, right?

Nope. One year later, those precious homemade onion flakes have been gone for months. And now that it's onion season again, I'm looking for the phone number for that orchard. I think I'd better buy a full bushel this year.