Onions- smoked, dried & ground

Hmm... I like this idea. Thinking it would have a better taste than the store bought variety of powder.

So, not counting your time to prep for smoke, transferring to the dehydrator, grinding, etc, your cost @ (just guessing) $0.80/lb comes out at roughly $2.75, including electricity, to produce your 1 cup of smoked, dried, ground onion. Seems like a lot of work, but at least you have a workable process and the resources to make it happen again, if need be.

Were you considering smoking the dried, chopped onion sold in plastic containers? Just for giggles, I know the large plastic jugs cost around $12 at big-box outlets, but not sure what the volume of ground would be. OK, just grabbed ours for a peek: 3.12lbs dried & chopped...probably ~80% (maybe closer to 85%) loss of weight from drying, so for the sake of simplicity, (from 1/5 remaining weight) 5 x 3.12 = 15.6lbs chopped onion before drying...just a guestimate. By comparison $0.80 x 15.6lbs = $12.48 for those same onions, before chopping & drying. I'd have never guessed this one, but you're money ahead buying chopped/dried, then smoking those on mesh trays and grinding it all up. Not to mention, no peeling or knife-work for chopping, no drying...damned if I would have guessed this one!!! And, to top it all off, yield of finished ground onion would be roughly 5 cups, with a bit to spare...quite a batch for the pantry stash.

Check my math if you want, but I think It's correct.

Eric

How'd it taste? Would you do it again? It sounds like an interesting experiment.

Disco

Sounds awesome Jim, keep up the good work! Would love to see some pics of the process.

Sounds like your have a ball with it! Fun!

hillbilly jim said:

Saturday evening, I sliced up three pounds of yellow onions and smoked them all night with nothing but the AMNPS. Sunday evening, I put them in the dehydrator and ran them at 145* for 24 hours. This evening, I ran them thru my Secura grinder and got exactly one cup of coarse ground smoked & dried onions.

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Hi I have been doing this for a long time I built a smoker drier and do about 25 lb of onions at a time I like the sweet onions and use cherry wood. I get about 10% of the weight that I started with. The big trick to doing a lot at once is to not get above 105 deg or the onions cook and do not tast as good. I also do this with jalapeño and grind them in a coffe grinder mix 50/50 with season salt(Lowery’s). The grinder works on the onions too.

I see some amazing dips on the horizon is all I gotta say..!