 My local greengrocer had a fantastic special on onions this week - 10 kilo bags for $3! That's just 30c a kilo - about an 80 per cent saving on supermarket prices.
I couldn't resist and before I knew it two bags had mysteriously made their way into my kitchen. So faced with 20 kilos of brown onions what was I to do? Well first off I roped in all the family and had them take turns at peeling - a half a bag each. That was the worst chore over and done with. Then I took out the food processor and, using the chopping blade, I processed half of them. Now that's a lot of chopped onion, and I did it in batches. With my trusty 1/2 cup measure I portioned those chopped onions into ziplock bags ready to go into the freezer. Those bags of frozen onion will be used to prepare rissoles and burgers, meatloaf, pies, soups and stews, casseroles, pies and quiche and anything else that needs diced or chopped onion this winter. The remaining onions were sorted and any small enough to roast were blanched, drained and put onto a baking paper lined baking sheet and then flash frozen. I'll use these for our Sunday roasts. When they are completely frozen they'll be bagged up too. That left about 7 kilos of rather largish onions. Those were sliced on the mandolin. They will be great for hamburgers and steak sandwiches and crumbed they'll make lovely onion rings. The mandolin had them sliced up, into lovely even slices, in no time. And again they went into ziplock bags, this time in 1 cup portions. Now there is a green bag in the freezer, full of packets of diced, sliced or whole onions. It did take a couple of hours to process that 20 kilos, but it will save me a lot of time over winter. When a recipe calls for onion I will be able to just pull a packet out of the freezer. And know that I've saved around $24 too. What do you buy in bulk to prepare ahead and freeze? Leave a comment and inspire us! This post was shared from Debt Free, Cashed Up and Laughing
7 Comments
michelle Glassco
16/6/2017 10:52:17 pm
Great deal! I like to buy my chicken whole, roast it the first night and slow cook the carcass the next day for soup. I made a deal with my brother that I would purchase 50 chicks for the both of us if he would raise them for me, I live in town so its not possible for me. So I have 25 free range chickens headed for my freezer at about $6 a chicken. I thought that was a great deal till I was in my local Kroger store last night and they had about ten whole chickens on sale for .34 cents a pound because they were expiring the next day. I couldn't resist that deal so I bought two whole chicks at 6lbs. each for $2.34. I love these great deals but now I have no room in my freezer.
Julie
26/8/2020 12:12:27 pm
Don't you have to feed the chickens but they put the price of the chickens up just a thought
Betsy
18/2/2019 03:22:19 pm
Now I have more of a question about this. I have a food saver system and they specifically say not to freeze onions because of their water content, they basically disintegrate once cooked. I would love to freeze my vadalia sweet onions because I can't keep them on hand since I use them so much. So I figured I'd get them on sale , stock up and freeze them but not recommended. Please advise
Cath (Cheapskates Staff)
18/2/2019 03:35:36 pm
Not sure what you mean by food saver system? Is this the Sunbeam Foodsaver vacuum sealer? Onions, like all "water" vegetables do go soggy when they are thawed after being frozen, but they are still fine to use in cooking. I freeze whole, sliced and diced onions regularly and they are fine to use. They fry, saute and roast just fine.
Pat
10/5/2019 09:33:39 pm
I looked at the frozen pizza that I was putting in the oven one evening and noted that it not only had frozen capsicum on it but also frozen diced onion.
Pat Fagan
26/8/2020 07:30:39 pm
I noted you said FLASH FREEZE. How exactly do you do this?
Cath
26/8/2020 08:30:54 pm
To flash freeze, spread whatever you are going to freeze in a single layer on a tray and freeze. Once frozen you can package and store in the freezer. This stops things sticking or clumping together. Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
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