If you’re looking to maximize the shelf life of your freshly harvested onions, you’ve come to the right place.
Today, we’re talking techniques that will keep your onions in top-notch condition.
From curing to freezing, we’ve got you covered with tips and tricks that will make preserving onions a breeze!
Quick Tip: When to Harvest Onions
This year, we planted about 100 onions each of Red Creole and Texas Super Sweet. We ordered our starts from Dixondale Farms, which we highly recommend.
If you’re not thrilled with the size of your onion harvest this year, try fertilizing with ammonium sulfate next year.
Onions are unique in that they require more nitrogen than phosphorus, despite being a root crop.
In years past, we used a combination of blood meal and bone meal, but I think the ammonium sulfate really did the trick this year.
One of the wonderful things about onions is that they tell you when they are ready by flopping over.
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The neck of the onion, where the green stem meets the bulb, remains stiff throughout the growing stage. When they start nearing maturity, the neck softens and can no longer support the greens, causing them to flop over.
Ideally, you should harvest when the ground is dry to avoid rot and aid in the curing process.
However, sometimes you have to work with less-than-ideal conditions, as we did this year due to impending rain.
Okay, let’s dig into the different preservation methods….
Rather Watch Than Read? Video Tutorial
How to Put Up Your Harvest 5 Ways
1. Curing Onions
This year, we only cured enough onions to meet the needs of our for canning projects.
To determine if an onion is a good candidate for curing, squeeze the neck to check for moisture. Avoid onions with signs of rot or damaged wrappers, as these won’t cure well.
We used a piece of closet wire shelving in our garage to allow airflow around the onions. It’s important to keep them out of direct sunlight but in a warm, slightly humid environment.
We also used a fan to ensure good airflow.
If you’ll be curing for use throughout the year, trying stringing your onions like this for easy storage.
2. Onion Broth
We made onion broth using onion wrappers, tops, and a few whole onions.
After seasoning with salt, pepper, and turmeric, we cooked the broth overnight in a roaster oven.
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The broth was then strained and pressure canned for long-term storage.
If you’d rather freeze than can, here’s a guide to freezing homemade broths.
3. Pickled Red Onions
Using red wine vinegar and a blend of pickling spices, we made pickled red onions.
After slicing the onions thinly, we simmered them in the vinegar brine and then canned them in half-pint jars.
4. Onion Top Powder
We freeze-dried the green onion tops and blended them into a powder.
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This powder can be used to make homemade spice blends!
5. Freeze Drying
For freeze drying, we chopped the onions using a vegetable chopper and loaded them onto trays. The cycle took about 40 hours.
We then vacuum-sealed the freeze-dried onions to keep them fresh.
Detailed instructions for each of these preservation projects can be found in the video above!
We ended up with a bountiful harvest and a variety of preserved onion products, including freeze-dried onions, onion broth, pickled red onions, and onion top powder.
We also have several bags of frozen onion tops for future broths and stocks!
We hope you found this guide helpful and enjoyed learning about different ways to preserve onions.
What’s your favorite way to put up onions?
