Dehydrating Onions Without a Dehydrator

Yes, you read that correctly. I've been drying out a lot of onions lately with my indoor drying method.

I also do a lot of outdoor summer drying. Last year it was mostly zucchini, but who knows what I'll try this summer. (I'll share my fancy contraption for that later).

Now, I would love to have any one of these Excalibur food dehydrators, but at this time, it's just too expensive and I have no where to store it.

Oh, and did I mention, I'm just to cheap, I mean frugal to buy it.

Why am I dehydrating onions? Our family goes through about a bag of onions a week. It gives my "scratch cooking" more flavor. Plus the health benefits of eating onions outweighs the negative. I read somewhere where the sulfur in onions is a natural chelator of aluminum in the body. I don't remember where I found that little tidbit, but anyway, our family goes through this little veggie.

Our Aldi has been selling a 3 lb. bag for $1.69. UGH! That's a chunk of change! I remember when (in the not so short time ago)they were 69 cents a bag! Anyway, last week Aldi had the bags marked down to 59 cents a bag. Sell them or smell them, I guess! So, I bought many bags for that price.

I sliced the onions at about 1/4" thickness, placed them on baker's racks. Put the baker's racks on top of cookie sheets - in case any pieces fell through and put the whole thing on top of our woodstove.

Not as pretty as the Excalibur, but it gets the job done. I dry them about 12 hours. Turn over halfway through the process.

After they are completely dried, I break them into pieces and store them in a glass jar. Add into soups, burgers, whatever.

*I must add, the whole house will be. . .um. . .fragrant. Try to do this when the weather is somewhat nice and you can raise the windows some. Or when everyone has colds and breathing onions will do everyone some good! Don't ask! LOL!