Perhaps I haven’t looked as intently as I should, but doesn’t it seem like that among all the canned vegetables out there in the supermarket there is a notable lack of canned onions?
Oh, you can buy a bottle of itty bitty cocktail onions. And you can buy onion powder, onion salt, onion rings, freeze dried onion, dehydrated onion, and that sort of thing…but…no actual canned onions. I can walk down the vegetable aisle and find canned potatoes, canned tomatoes, canned peas, canned green beans, canned corn, canned beets, canned everything…but not onions.
When the apocalypse comes, I need to be able to put some onion on my cheeseburger.
Now, I’m not exactly sure why there seems to be a lack of canned full-sized onions out there but I have some theories. I wonder if, since a whole onion is layers and layers of material, onions are unsuitable for canning because bacteria or air can be trapped inbetween those layers? But…the pressure canning should bring the temperature up high enough to kill anything in the onion, right? Or perhaps the onion loses its flavor as it leeches out into the water used to fill the canning jar, leaving you with a flavorless vegetable.
I suppose I should just break out the All American and some canning jars and see what happens if I try canning a whole onion. But, it is an interesting mystery to me.
So, while I suspect my post-apocalypse cheeseburgers and stir fries will be devoid of onion slices, I can still make my various sauces and whatnot with the dried chopped onions the folks at the LDS cannery so generously make available.
And, for your own edification and amusement, a fairly comprehensive treatise on how to store onions…note that while pickling is mentioned, regular canning is glossed over almost to the point of being not even mentioned.
You need to go dig up one of those mason jars full of money in the back yard and buy a freeze drier. Get with times man! You just did a post on flashlights and how times have changed for the better.
the Google machine says it will work. Maybe the nice Morman ladies could lend a hand.
‘…Canning Onions (but Not Garlic): Onions are low acid foods with a pH of 5.3 to 5.85. Thus, if they are to be canned, they must be pressure canned for safety. … Pack onions into hot jars, leaving 1-inch headspace. Add ½ teaspoon salt to pints or 1 teaspoon to quarts, if desired…’
I love onions a keep a big Costco sized bag on hand at all times. Old time doctor observation, back when they made house calls, said homes that kept an onion sliced open and on the nightstand next to the beds didn’t get sick as much. We do it and it seems to work.
I think that if you tried to pressure can whole onions they would turn to mush from the time and high temperature. You may be able to get away with a short time, say 15 or 20 minutes in a boiling water bath like you do with pickles or jelly. Or you could try a 45′ @ 170F pasteurization like is done with some bottled beers. Maybe also put in a little bit of citric acid to help with preservation. It would be an interesting experiment. I, too would miss a nice slab of onion on my burger. Now you got me hungry. Even though it’s cold and snowing here I just may fire up the grill a little later today………….
Nothing beats fresh onion. We grow and store our own garlic and onion. When grown from seed and harvested/cured right, onion will store around 8 months in the cellar. Garlic can last even longer. We store them in bins like this:
https://www.glacierv.com/SPD/item-no-690-tall-produce-lug–vented–1E90000-1172171789.jsp
Never tried canning onion but we have made pickled garlic scapes. They’re great on salads or as a stand alone.
Egyptian walking onions are perennials. They grow like weeds. Set it and forget it.
Try Boiling onions to a core temperature of 100°C, Then let it cool to room temperature and slice it for your burger.
It wont taste good. Start cultivating a garden patch of onions instead, they store well over winter.
Not sure I’d bother with canning onions.
They keep close to a year I’d stored properly, and you can grow them quite easily.
Root vegetables are fantastic for these reasons. We just pulled the last of the carrots out of the ground last weekend.
There are official, tested as safe, instructions for pressure canning onions. BUT, they require either the canning of small (pearl) onions, or the cutting of the larger onions into smaller pieces. Its a density issue, a whole large onion is a pretty darn dense thing, and the temperatures and times required to get the appropriate heat all the way to the center of the onion turn it to mush.
As stated above, you’re better off finding a type of perennial “walking” type onion that grows in your climate and planting them in a random corner of the yard. I’m USDA zone 5, and I’ve got some that grow just fine here, so its possible in most of the USA just fine.
I vote for growing them too. Easy to do and foolproof. I grow onions, garlic, shallots, and ramps. I’ve got thick stands right now in the garden with all the mild weather here. Plant them in the fall because they DO need a cold spell to get going. A burger without onions isn’t worth eating IMO…
Regards
I don’t can, at least not yet. However, I’m curious, why not try slicing and vacuum sealing them?I understand the benefits of canning, but wouldn’t flat vac-sealed onion slices not only be easier to store, but do away with the potential loss of flavor and/or constitution?
The entire point of canning (and pressure canning in particular) is to create conditions within the jar/can, that are hostile to pathogens.
If you simply vacuum can, then the nasties are free to grow, and propagate, and might, once you open the container, be so numerous as to cause disease.
And, while you MIGHT survive botulism, even with 21st century First World Medicine, you are unlikely to survive it unscathed. IMHO, persistent neurological deficits might screw up my day/life.
botulism LOVES a lack of oxygen. So vac sealing alone isn’t proof against it. You’d still have to freeze the slices.
Give Jackie Clay a yell over at https://www.backwoodshome.com/blogs/JackieClay/
If anyone on the planet has done it, or knows how to do it, it’d be her.
The magazine is worth the coin as well.
Best way to store onions is to braid the extended ‘tails’, and hang them up.
I use my All American to can onions. I fill whatever Jars I have empty at the time and put coarsely cut onions into them along with beef broth or stock (whichever I have, sometimes both) and can them up.
They sure don’t last long, though…
For anyone nervous about coming down with a nasty case of botulism- the latest issue of Self Reliance has a detailed article on specifically how to avoid it.