Green onions are one of my favorite ingredients to add to many kinds of recipes, but I find it frustrating to have fresh onions when I need them, but not waste half of the package. Here are two great tricks to ensure that you always have green onions in your kitchen any time you need them.
Although I love the taste and flavor green onions added to meals they are sometimes a frustrating addition. It seems like when you do add them to a recipe you need so little, that you end up wasting the rest or if you really need them, you don’t have them or they have already gone bad in the refrigerator. Thanks to Pinterest I learned two very useful kitchen tips that allow me to always have an abundant supply of fresh green onions, and frozen ones as well. If you didn’t know about these handy tricks, am I happy to be sharing it with you and hope that it works as well for you as it does for me.
Did you know that you can regrow green onions in your very own kitchen using the ends that you would normally just toss into the garbage can?
After you buy a package of green onions from your grocery store, use what you need and then add the white ends to water for an endless supply of green onions. I use a small ball jar filled with water to house my indoor green onion garden. I like to leave just enough of the green part of the onion so that they are standing up in the jar. You can use a plain old drinking glass or any shallow glass to make this work.
I place the water filled jar and onion stubs on the counter where they can get sun, and within a day I have new growth. In a weeks time I have enough growth for next weeks recipe! It is just that simple. Plunk some onion ends in water in a sunny location and watch them grow. Harvest the new growth anytime you need it.
I find it best to change the water every few days and rinse the ends of the onions thoroughly to prevent murky stinky water. I can usually get my onions to grow nicely for about a month and a half before I toss the ends and start over with fresh ones. When I have new growth that I won’t be using right away I cut it off , chop it, and add it into a small plastic water bottle that I store closed in the freezer.
The little bottle of onions is perfect to grab out of the freezer, dump out a few onions into a dish and store back in the freezer for those times that I don’t have fresh onions available. These two little tricks work great for me, and I haven’t been without my tasty green onions since I learned them! I have found that I cook with them far more frequently now that I always have them on hand – adding extra flavor to lost of different dishes in the kitchen.