How to Make Green Onion Powder
02. May 2024Guest Blog Post. Amy is the Director of Marketing and Communications for Joe Lamp’l (AKA joegardener®). In her spare time she gardens and practices her nature photography in a small suburban backyard in Northeastern Oklahoma with her dog Scarecrow. Amy’s new website and blog Toad and Sage Garden is where she features her garden photography and writes about ecological gardening and growing herbs, vegetables, flowers, and native plants in a suburban backyard.
Onions are a staple in my garden because they’re a staple in my kitchen. Who doesn’t find themselves starting dinner each night by reaching for an onion? When you grow them in the garden, in addition to harvesting the flavorful bulbs, you get a bonus crop all spring - the green onion tops.
Those leaves of spring onions are edible long before the bulbs are big enough to harvest and can be used fresh or dried in a variety of ways. One of my new favorite ways to preserve and use them is by making a green spring onion powder.
To clarify, I am referring to the large green foliage on bulbing onions. Those tall, hollow, dark green stalks that grow on red, white, or yellow onions as you are waiting patiently for the bulbs to get big enough to harvest. The smaller versions - scallions - are delicious but are milder and may not provide enough foliage to make this powder.
An onion scape on candy yellow onions.
Taming the Onion Patch
This past spring I had a little patch of candy yellow onions that I planted from transplants in March which I had bought from the organic farm up the road. Onions grow slowly so by May, the bulbs were still too small to harvest, but the green tops were lush and flavorful!
Harvested onion scapes can be dehydrated along with the leaves to grind into green onion powder. When scapes aren’t harvested, the plant will direct energy into flower production rather than to the bulbs.
By then they'd started putting on a few scapes too. Scapes are what will become flowers if you let them keep growing. I needed to trim the scapes anyway so the plant's energy wouldn’t get diverted away from the bulbs and directed into supporting those flowers.
Both the scapes and fresh leaves are edible. Plus those big green tops were bending, breaking, and getting so top-heavy they were pulling the onions over and threatening to uproot them right out of the soil.
A basket full of freshly harvested onion leaves destined to become green onion powder.
Preserving The Garden
I decided those onions needed a haircut, which resulted in a basket of greens that I couldn't use up fast enough fresh. I still had a whole salad spinner full of green onion tops from another recent trimming. So I decided to dehydrate this batch and turn them into onion powder. When I have extra of anything from the garden, I try to find a way to preserve it, and most times, that's through dehydrating.
If you grow onions or have access to them fresh from a local source, follow the simple directions below to make a beautiful, flavorful onion powder for your kitchen spice collection
What You'll Need for Green Onion Powder
Lots of onion foliage from your garden, local farm or farmer's market
Dehydrator or oven
Blender, food processor, or spice grinder
A jar and labels
Chopped spring onion greens pieces on a dehydrator tray for drying and preparation to turn into green onion powder.
Turning Onion Greens into Onion Powder
First, trim the tops and scapes from the spring onions. Besides harvesting delicious edible onion greens to preserve, this onion “haircut” has an added benefit. If the green tops are too heavy and causing your onions to fall over, trimming them will help keep your onion bulbs upright. Just don't cut them all off. I stay in the top 1/3 of the plant so the onion bulb still has its foliage to help it grow and continue photosynthesis.
Dried pieces of spring onion leaves. When dried slowly at a low temperature, they retain their vibrant green color and flavor.
Once trimmed, chop the onion greens into pieces and place them along with any scapes harvested on dehydrator trays and spread out evenly. Place the trays into the dehydrator and allow the onions to dry on a very low setting until crisp. Drying them at a low heat helps ensure you keep that beautiful green color and fresh flavor. I start at around 100 degrees F and let it run for a full day, or overnight if I am drying them late in the day or evening.
Don't have a dehydrator? Try drying them in your oven on a cookie sheet at the lowest temperature it has. Before I splurged on a dehydrator I used my oven to dry many herbs and spices.
When the onion pieces are crispy and not bendy, use a food processor, blender, or spice/coffee grinder to turn the pieces into powder. The pieces should be dry enough that they break down easily and evenly in the blender. If you have any stubborn pieces that just won’t break down, you can remove those from the powder.
Decorate storage jars with CanningCrafts’ Foodie’s Delight labels and Apothecary Collection.
Storing The Finished Powder
Store the onion powder in an airtight jar with a label that contains the date and contents. For a special touch, I use small herbal jars and labels to store the onion powder in my homemade spice collection. Or I give as gifts to friends and family members who appreciate homemade seasonings. CanningCrafts’ Foodie’s Delight labels and Apothecary Collection are my go-to for my homegrown seasoning.
Alternatively, you can store the pieces whole in an airtight jar and rehydrate them later in soups, broth, chile, etc., or save them to process into a small batch of powder later when you are ready to use.
Decorate storage jars with CanningCrafts’ Foodie’s Delight labels.
Culinary Uses for Homegrown Onion Powder
Now that you have your own homemade onion powder in your kitchen, let’s explore ways to use it.
This vibrant green spring onion powder is perfect for flavoring just about anything savory! Sprinkle it onto roasted or steamed veggies, use it on salads or in salad dressings, season mashed and baked potatoes, grilled meat, tacos, lasagna, chicken salad, cottage cheese, deviled eggs, pizza, and more.
You can also use green onion powder combined with other herbs or spices to craft your own customized herb blends and rubs. That green onion flavor is much more delicious than the white store bought onion powder and adds a special zing to whatever you’re making.
Onions can be started from seed indoors in seed trays to transplant in the garden in the fall in warmer climates and spring in cooler climates.
Growing Your Own Onions
It doesn’t get any better than crafting a homemade seasoning using what you’ve grown right outside your back door. To grow onions, you can start with seeds, young transplants, or sets. You can direct sow onion seeds straight in the ground or raise your own transplants by starting the seeds indoors under grow lights.
Transplants can also be purchased and that’s how I grew my candy yellow onions last year, but many folks prefer using onion sets. Those are like batches of baby bulbs that began growing last year. They're a hit for home gardeners and easy to find in the spring at local garden centers and big box stores.
Onions focus on growing their leaves in cooler months, then switch to making bulbs when it gets warmer. In a cooler environment with cold winters, plant them in spring. In warmer regions, try planting in fall to harvest the following spring.
The shoulders of a candy yellow onion bulb above the soil. This one is just about ready to harvest.
Pick the Perfect Onion Type for Your Area
The type of onion you choose to grow depends on where you live. For the South, go for short-day onions; in the North, long-day ones work best. There are also day-neutral onions, which will do well anywhere.
Short-day and long-day onions make bulbs based on daylight hours, so choose onions that match your location. If you're sourcing your sets or plants from a nearby garden center, they should have what works for your area. But if you're buying seeds or sets online, it's a good idea to double-check for that in the variety’s description.
Preserve What you Grow
Onions are such an easy and near-effortless crop for the home garden, but not everyone thinks of using or preserving the green foliage and scapes.
Crafting and using your own onion powder is a fun and rewarding way to use up those extra onion leaves. It’s also a flavorful and visually attractive addition to any kitchen spice collection. Give it a try next time you grow onions!
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Read our blog post on How to Harvest & Eat Carrot Greens
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Have you made green onion powder before? If so, what is your favorite way to use it in the kitchen? Let us know in the comments below.
