Flavoursome Onion Salt

If you have never made onion salt, you would be in for a sweet surprise. For one, onions cost very little. Second, it is soooo easy. Most importantly, the flavour of home made onion flakes will blow you away! While you can stop at making onion flakes to flavour your dishes, making onion salt will add natural umami to salting a dish than just plain old salt. Also, salt is a form of preservative and therefore, there is no expiry date. Onion salt adds to the list of flavoured salts, especially habanero salt, perfect as gifts for family and friends.

Have a few jars ready, on stand by always 🙂 And, don’t stop at onions. Think colour. Think yellow lemon salt, green lime salt, rhubarb for purple, beet root for red…

Ingredients

Onions 1-2 Kgs

Method

  1. Peel onions
  2. Dice finely in a food processor, using pulse motion. Chopping by hand is tedious but fine too
  3. Squeeze out access juice (it will speed up the drying)
  4. Spread diced onions evenly over 4 trays
  5. Dehydrate using hot air function (convection dry mode) 65c for 6 -8 hours. Dehydrate over night using the cheapest power rates and you’ll rise to sweet smells in the morning :). 65c will gently dehydrate the onions with toasty light brown finish. Taste a piece of the dried onion flakes and you’ll understand what I mean by the sweet umami surprise
Place finely diced onion in a cheese cloth to wring the juices out
Finel
Spread diced onions evenly over four trays. Use baking paper or silicone mat on wire racks
Do not discard onion juice. It is nutritious and great on meats for flavour or as a tenderiser
Ready when they are crisp to the touch
Into the blender, onion first. Blend to get sand texture. Then add sea salt and blend again, for no more than a minute. Check along the way.
Texture of fine sand, is what you’re after