Better Late Than Never

[Big Toni]

I have a hint that has saved me hours and thought others might benefit. I have a Hungarian background and love to cook many of our traditional foods. I learned from one of the best cooks in the world; my Mom (no longer with me).
Anyway, many of our recipes use lots of chopped onion to begin with and I have always found this a time consuming chore. In my area frozen chopped onions are not usually available in stores, and when they are I find them chopped too big for my purposes. To help save time I use my veggie chopper and do lots of onions at once and then freeze them. I store them in either freezer bags, or a microwave save plastic container. I prefer the container for easier, less messy thawing. Onions freeze well when used for cooking. Container freezing also means you need only partially thaw onions to get them out. I further help myself, by putting sized onions (medium, small, etc.) wrapped individually in plastic wrap within my container. Then, it is easy to thaw exactly the amount my recipe requires. This is also helpful to the novice who might look at a container of onions and wonder how much a medium choppped onion is.
Hope other find this useful. Too bad I didn't thing to post it in time for you south of the border for Turkey stuffing! But Christmas is coming.

[Kathleen]

Thank you for the hint and welcome to DC!

[Sir_Loin_of_Beef]

I usually buy a 3 pound bag of diced Gil's Onions at the warehouse store, measure it into sandwich bags in ½ cup portions, put all the sandwich bags into a zippered freezer bag and stash them in the freezer. one sandwich bag is a small onion, two are a medium onion, and three are a large onion.

I know the onions are fresh because Gil's is only about a mile or so from my house and when the wind is right I can actually smell the place!

[Dawgluver]

I just got a huge bag of onions at Costco, thanks for the tip, guys!

[Josie1945]

Toni,
Great tip Thanks. We would love to hear about your Hungarian dishes.
When you get time.

Josie

[kezlehan]

Thanks for the tip! As a cooking newbie, how long could they be kept frozen?

[Big Toni]

Hi Kezlehan; I usually use mine up pretty quickly. However, I have often left mine from early Spring, when we start doing more bbqs than stove top meals, and may not use them again until the cooler weather comes in the Fall. I do find keeping them in a container preferrable to a ziplock type of bag. But that is a personal preference.

[Big Toni]

Sir_Loin_of_Beef, where are you? I looked on their site and couldn't see where they are located and I'd never heard of them. I'm in Ontario.

[PrincessFiona60]

Great tip! Dad used to buy a 50 pound bag of onions in Colorado (Brighton has huge onion and garlic fields) and dice up the whole bag in one day...I tried to be at work that day!

[Big Toni]

Hey Dawgluver, great idea if you happen to belong to Costco. Since my husband and I are empty nesters, I don't find stores like Costco a good investment for us. I know our daugter with three kids can't be without it.