Waste-Free Onion Storage
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I post a picture and just a few words.
I store uncut onions outside of the fridge (my cold laundry room is perfect for this!).
But once they're partially cut, I store them in the fridge, and for a while, I couldn't figure out how to do this in a waste-free way, mainly because onions are so odiferous.
A disposable plastic bag creates waste, so I prefer not to do that, but putting the onions in a reusable container made the lid stink, even after trips through the dishwasher.
So, I've been storing my cut onions in a glass mason jar (This is a wide-mouth pint jar
, which I find to be a really handy size.)
And the onions DO make the lid stink-there is no question about that. That's why I used a sharpie to label the lid, which means I will never make the mistake of using it on some other kind of food.
(Remember when I accidentally used an onion lid to make yogurt??)
If you wanted to store an onion for a long time, this wouldn't work because it's not air-tight enough to keep the onion from drying out. But I use onions almost every day, and so mine never live in the Mason jar for long.
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Joshua's 52 post: Ninja
(Fair warning: it's a spider. But it's kind of a cute one, and it totally looks like it's wearing a ninja mask.)
Eep, I'm going to give Joshua's spider a miss, I think. Ninja or not LOL
I keep my partially-used onion (I use little onion during a week really as I'm the only person who eats it) in a sturdy ziplock bag which is labelled "onion" like your jar. I re-use the bag from one onion to the next so it doesn't create too much waste.
I do find that, using a ziplock, it does mean I can squeeze out the air somewhat before sealing it which, I think, helps.
Cute jar though! That'd look much cooler on my shelf 🙂
That's a good idea too...a sturdy, dedicated onion bag.
I reuse pickle jars for this. Also, we grind ginger and garlic (sometimes together, sometimes separately), and keep that in pickle jars, too. Pretty much, if you see it in a pickle jar in our fridge, it's gonna be stinky. (We run them through the dishwasher, an leave them out to dry, then don't store them with the lids screwed on, so the smell dissipates, some.)
Oooh, great idea...use an already stinky jar to store stinky foods. Perfect.
Thank you! I've been storing mine inside a plastic bag inside a Tupperware container, but this is much better.
Ditto. I use ziploc bag to store onions and last weekend when we were cleaning the garage, I found couple mason jars of this size and will be using this from now on.
My grandmother gave me an onion-storer for Christmas. It's plastic, looks like an onion, and the top & bottom half screw together. It's worked well so far- keeps the odor from leeching into other items in the produce drawer & haven't had a problem with the onion drying out. I do use onions pretty frequently though, so I don't know if they would dry out if left in there for very long. It makes the onions easier to find too. I'd lose onions when I put them in plastic bags- they'd manage to end up under or behind other items, so when I'd clean the drawer out, I'd have three or four different bags of onion pieces.
How does this work for halved or chopped onions?
Interesting ... I don't notice onion smell in my TellFresh, even though I'll store both halved and chopped onion in them. So either TellFresh doesn't get stinky, or I'm so enamoured of onions (they're a basic food group, aren't they?) that I don't notice.
Pickle jars, OTOH, are hopeless. No matter what, they smell like pickles to me. If my roommate buys pickles that jar ~never~ gets repurposed.
Wow, that's a great idea!
We actually use the plastic containers our Chinese food comes in. I'm not sure what the difference is, but they just NEVER seem to hold the smell. We wash, air dry, store (without the lids) and re-use as needed. We also use them for soups and any other liquids and they don't leak! I'm not sure what process makes them differently, but they've held up better than most of our other plastic storage so they get used A LOT. Same with our yogurt containers.
Here's something I learned on the Salad in a Jar blog. It takes a little monetary investment, but it pays off big time:
1. Purchase a hand held vacuum sealer like this one: http://www.amazon.com/FoodSaver-FreshSaver-Handheld-Vacuum-Sealing/dp/B00DH4R28O/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1394568355&sr=8-16&keywords=foodsaver+handheld+vacuum (NOTE: I used the Amazon link for illustration purposes, only. You can find this cheaper in many stores (about $19), or use the 20% off coupon at Bed Bath and Beyond.)
2. Purchase Foodsaver regular and/or wide mouth jar attachments http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_7_13?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=foodsaver%20jar%20sealer%20wide%20mouth&sprefix=foodsaver+jar%2Caps%2C234 Amazon may be your best bet because these are harder to find, but it pays to shop around.
For this investment of about $35 to $40, you can vacuum seal any canning jar with ease. The hand held sealer works with the jar attachments--just put the device firmly over the hole of the attachment and it will work beautifully.
This is especially great with smelly stuff like onions. We put the contents of the few packaged items we buy into jars and seal them up to keep them fresher. It's especially good for raw nuts and seeds.
I also use my food dehydrator to dehydrate vegetables and fruit when they are inexpensive in season (or when a garden produces too much) and put all the dehydrated foods in vacuum sealed jars to further preserve them.
You can open and reseal the jars as many times as you like, so if you take some of the food out, just reseal the jar. Leftovers stay fresh longer in the fridge if vacuum sealed.
It costs a little money up front, but pays off in that you can use the vacuum sealer over and over again (although I think we have worn the first one out after 3 or so years of daily use). Be sure to use jars and lids specifically made for canning as they are designed to withstand the pressure differential. It may not be safe with non-canning jars. The jar attachments are specific to Ball and Kerr sized canning jars.
If you drink wine and have a Vacu-Vin wine preservation system that requires you to pump the air out of the bottle with a hand pump, we've discovered the hand held vacuum sealer works on that sealing system, too.
I never use a container, bag etc. to store an onion, only a plate. No need for any container if you do not peel the whole onion! Take what you need, for example, cut the onion in half if you only need half an onion. The half of onion that you won't be using right away goes cut side down onto a plate and into the fridge as is. There are no smells because the cut side is sealed against the plate and the onion still has its skin intact for the rest of it. Hope this explanation makes sense. As long as you use it within the week, it won't dry out either.
Boy I made a mistake when I bought "Debbie Meyer Green Boxes". Apart from making my vegetable drawer look organized(which I was never able to achieve, in all these years of trying, when I stored my produce in plastic bags) they simply DO NOT WORK as advertised. I was sucked in by the infomercial like everyone else. So what am I doing wrong here? And what the heck was I expecting anyway, they're just plastic containers like all the rest. Sheesh.
Great idea - I usually use a bowl and put it face down, but it can still make the fridge smell and also dry out.
Whenever I only use part of an onion I dice up the rest and put it in a zip lock bag in the freezer and use it the next time I need cooked diced onion (ground beef, spaghetti sauce etc.) No onion smell that way and I won't forget about the onion and end up throwing it away later! But for red onion I do store it in the fridge. How long is onion good in the fridge after it's been cut?
I dice extra onion and freeze it on a plastic lid, then add it to a recycled Parmesan cheese jar in my freezer. When I want diced onion fast, I just shake some out.
William B- Pickle jars in my house get a quick wash and then I use them to hold food scraps. When I prep dinner I pull it out of the freezer and add my non compostable food scraps to it and then back into the freezer until full (put out in trash the night before trash day). I don't have a disposal and I don't want my trash to attrach animals so this option of acctually being able to use my stiny jars is perfect. See your room mates pickle jars can be useful!