You could be questioning why anybody would ever select to soak dehydrated onions for as much as half-an-hour when chopping one straight from the produce part takes simply minutes. Nicely, maybe you possibly can’t get via the dicing course of with out soaking the slicing board in tears (imagine us; we have tried the no-crying hacks, and never all of them work). Possibly your knife abilities are downright harmful, that means your assortment of blades is not any sharper than a butter-slicing utensil. However there’s truly one profit to selecting dehydrating onions over an intact bulb: They’ll amplify taste, as a result of the water you soak these tiny flakes in must be reserved and added to sure recipes.

To rehydrate, first immerse the dried onions in water that is been warmed to no less than 70 levels Fahrenheit, permitting the flakes to lounge in that bathtub for no less than quarter-hour, however it may take as much as half-hour to completely rehydrate. Use no less than a 1:1 ratio of dried, minced onions to water. And take into account that roughly 2 ounces of dehydrated onions is the equal of three cups of the recent vegetable. You’ll be able to then drain the water or press it out with the again of a flat kitchen implement. That is excellent if including to a dry recipe; as an example, recreating the pungent little nubs on a McDonald’s burger or constructing a Chicago canine toppings bar.

For those who plan on making a soup, sauce, or casserole — a dish the place extra moisture could possibly be a profit — save the rehydrating liquid. Loads of recipes instruct cooks to easily toss the desiccated onions into one thing like a stew alone. However that water has develop into one thing akin to an onion tea post-soak and it is filled with the essence of these flakes, amplifying the chew onion lovers crave.

One of the apparent purposes for rehydrated onions is in a do-it-yourself French onion soup full with the delectable, melty seal of Gruyere. Although you possibly can mash up that steakhouse traditional with a humbler entree, mac and cheese, and you have got your self a decadent big day dish. Or, revive a mid-century traditional like liver and onion gravy by throwing some salty bacon into the combination alongside the dehydrated onions and their soaking water. This works as each a full meal when paired with dense mashed potatoes or as a modernized appetizer. The latter ought to flip liver skeptics into unsuspecting followers, significantly as a result of bacon slabs can blanket bite-sized hunks of iron-rich organ meat