Make Your Own Garlic Powder and Onion Powder With Your Dehydrator Easily
Make your own garlic powder and onion powder easily. You’ll never want to buy from the store again!
This is me getting creative. My latest DIY project.
I love using garlic and onion when I cook. There is rarely a dish that I make that doesn’t have those two ingredients. But I don’t just use garlic cloves and onions, I use garlic powder and onion powder to add depth to the recipe, like my favorite chicken bowl, and to make my own spices.
Garlic powder and onion powder are my go-to spices behind salt and pepper.
But I ran out. And spices can sometimes be expensive (unless you can find those rare coupons), it just wasn’t in the budget this week. So I got creative.
How to Make Your Own Garlic Powder and Onion Powder
We had some onions that were about to go bad and the garlic was starting to grow green shoots, so I went to the garage and (affiliate link) grabbed the dehydrator my Mom got from Aldi that she gave me for Christmas and got to work peeling the garlic and slicing the onions.
Here’s the progress. It actually took longer than I thought. I thought it would take 9 hours. Nope. More like 36 hours. But this isn’t a heavy-duty dehydrator. Although it did get the job done.
You have to wait until the garlic and onions are hard and brittle. Not pliable at all.
I was pretty impressed with myself. I used our coffee grinder {that I use as a spice grinder} to turn the spices into powder. Unfortunately, I didn’t have that many garlic cloves, but this was totally an experiment.
A wonderful aromatic experiment.
The onions filled my little jar and I had extra.
The onions actually tasted sweet and the powder was kind of sticky as I was trying to get the powder off the lid of the coffee grinder. I loved cooking with fresh powders. It gave the dishes just the right about of flavor.
Both the garlic and onion powders smelled wonderful. So strong and fresh.
You don’t need a dehydrator to do this either. It’s Summertime. Wash some window screens and set out whatever you want to dry out in the sun. A natural dehydrator. You can also use your oven, but from what I’ve read, you’re supposed to leave the oven door cracked to let the moisture escape. I wouldn’t suggest that with children around.
I am SO excited this little experiment worked. You have to try it!
What would you like to dehydrate? What have you dehydrated?
Great idea, but a lot of work when I could take 2 dollars and head to the dollar store lol! I don’t mean that it isn’t a frugal idea, especially when using up old produce before it goes bad, but just too much work for me.
Haha! I completely understand that, Kim :). We have to watch spices and their additives with my son’s gluten intolerance. Not to mention we have several cloves of garlic and onions that were about to go to waste. The waiting took the most time. But it’s also a dehydrator from Aldi, with a heating coil. I’m sure that makes a huge difference in the time. Thanks for stopping by :).
I have NEVER thought of making my own spices like that. I’ve actually just started making my own taco seasoning. Very impressive!
Thanks for joining the Frugal Photo Friday link-up!