How to Freeze Onions: Fast, Easy and Handy

Sometimes you have so many onions from the garden that you cannot use them before they spoil. Or your store may have a great sale on onions. If you are single, you might not use your onions up before they rot. What to do? Freeze those onions. No waste and so handy when you are cooking.

Uses for frozen onions.

Don't expect a frozen onion to thaw and be great on top of a hamburger. A frozen onion will become mushy after it thaws. Frozen onions are for cooking. Throw them in scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, casseroles, soups, stews and hamburger. The list goes on and on!

Freezing onions is easy and fast. There are two methods to freezing onions. I will tell you how to do each. One is called "flash freezing" it takes a bit more time. Method number 2 is really fast and easy and the one I always use!

Freezing onions by flash freezing.

Flash freezing is when you chop onions, and spread them on cookie sheets and stick in your freezer. This ensures that the onions pieces freeze separately and not together.

Utensils
Sharp knife
cutting board
cookies sheets
freezer bags
Wax paper (optional)

Use firm onions. Peel the outside skin off and cut the root and top ends off. I usually halve or quarter my onion and chop into pieces. Next put wax paper on a cookie sheet (this is optional, I don't like onions on aluminum) spread the onion chunks on it. Pop into the freezer. When the onion pieces are frozen, remove from the cookie sheet and put in freezer bags. This method works great.

But, for people like me who want to freeze onions even faster, omit the cookie sheet part. I clean and chop my onions just like above. I chop the onions into a bowl and when I am done, I simply grab a freezer bag and fill it with the onion chunks. I label and date the bags and take to the freezer. Do NOT stack the bags of onion chunks on top of each other to freeze. Spread them out so they will freeze faster. You can stack them on top of each other AFTER the onions freeze solid.

When you use this method, many times the onion pieces will be stuck together in the freezer bags. I give it a good rap on the counter edge and they come apart. I have been freezing onions this way for 30 years and I can't tell you how handy it is to have frozen onions on hand!

Now you know how to freeze onions! It's easy, quick and oh so handy!

My own experience