Un-Rubbery Dehydrated Onions
Michalis 'BIG Mike' Kotzakolios


Defined Tag: Dehydrated Onion.

Onions are one of those tricky things to cook with. The taste can make nearly any dish better, but the texture--the texture can be difficult to work with, chewy or slimy or a host of other unappetizing adjectives. Dehydrated onions are especially bad about this; they have a tendency to be rubbery, slick, and chewy; not desirable textures, by any standards. But the good news is, dehydrated onions don't have to be that way *if* you know how to prepare them correctly!

The key is rehydration. Dehydrated onions have had all the water removed from them, like other dehydrated foods, but unlike other dehydrated foods, dehydrated onions can't get water back into them fast enough when you just throw a handful into your dish. The result? Partially-dehydrated onion pieces that have absorbed just enough water to make them rubbery, but not enough to make them palatable.

How, you may ask, do I rehydrate onions, then? I'm glad you asked. To rehydrate one handful of onions, put the onions in a bowl and pour an eighth of a cup of water over them. Leave the onions to sit in the bowl for at least twenty minutes. Then, when you add them to your dish, add the water with them. This is very important, as the water will have absorbed some of the flavor of the onions. Putting in just the onions will result in a dish with less onion flavor, and what's the point of adding onions if you're not going to be able to taste them? You may need to adjust for the extra water; if you can, replace some of the liquid the recipe calls for with the onion water. If you can't do that--if, for example, you're making a tomato sauce--then simply allow it to simmer until the extra water has dissipated, and only the flavor is left.

Cooking with dehydrated onions doesn't have to be difficult. The key is to rehydrate them before using them. If you do that, your dehydrated onions will be a delicious and pleasant addition to any meal.

BIG Mike is a well known author, developer and Adsense expert as well as the owner of Niche Maniacs - a unique Adsense Marketing System designed to build long-term passive income streams from Adsense, Amazon, YPN, Chitika and other PPC services.