Homemade Onion Powder
Making your own onion powder allows you to control ingredients and save on the cost of store bought bottles. Here's a step by step guide to help!
Cooking majority of our food at home means we use certain staple items almost daily. Spices and seasonings are an example of often used staple items. I did some research on which herbs and spices could be grown and/or made at home. Knowing that it is possible the question became does it make sense financially. We are looking to be frugal after all.
Let's get into the step by step process. At the end, I will break down the numbers to help determine if making onion powder at home will save money.
Peel and slice onions as thin as you can. You can do this by hand, with a mandolin or with a food processor. Method, shape and size is not as important as thickness. Thinly sliced onions will dehydrate faster than thicker slices.
Putting the onions through the food processor made quick work of chopping. I love my stand mixer attachment. It is different from a standard food processor because the food comes right out of the bottom into a bowl of your choice.
Peel and slice onions as thin as you can. You can do this by hand, with a mandolin or with a food processor. Method, shape and size is not as important as thickness. Thinly sliced onions will dehydrate faster than thicker slices.
Putting the onions through the food processor made quick work of chopping. I love my stand mixer attachment. It is different from a standard food processor because the food comes right out of the bottom into a bowl of your choice.
“Tip: Reduce the crying by cutting cold onions! Put onions in the freezer at least 10 minutes before cutting or store in a cold garage like we did! You still may weep but not as much.”
Bake onions until dry and crispy. It was about 7 hours for us. There were a few pieces that were not quite done. I just set those to the side. You could put those pieces back into the oven on their own. I just did not have enough that would make it worth it.
Transfer dried onions into food processor or spice grinder. Grind dried onions until desired coarseness. I tried both a food processor and my coffee grinder to compare. The coffee grinder resulted in a more fine powder than the food processor. I would use either in the future.
Store in an airtight container. I saved and cleaned out glass spice bottles.
Cost Analysis
I purchased a 3 pound bag of organic onions while on sale for $1.50. I used the entire bag (minus 1 onion) to make 2 bottles of onion powder. See the breakdown by weight for my second bottle.
Using rough math, my finished cost was $0.50 for the bottle ($1.50 / 3lb = $0.50lb). This does not factor in the electricity used to run the oven or the coffee grinder and food processors. Current price for a 1.94 oz of organic ground onion powder is $3.59. That's a $3.09 savings per bottle!
I will need to report back how long these bottles last for us. In the meantime, if I come across another 2/$3 sale on organic onions, I will definitely stock up. This was easy to make and also saves money. Call it a win!