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If you've ever had onions turn soft, moldy, or start sprouting after just a few weeks, this video is for you. Learn the traditional storage methods that can help keep onions fresh for months—without freezing, canning, or using expensive equipment.
In this video, you'll discover:
🧅 How to choose the best onions for long-term storage
🧺 The ideal temperature, humidity, and airflow for storing onions
❌ Common storage mistakes that cause onions to rot or sprout early
🏡 Traditional storage techniques that have been used for generations
📦 Simple ways to organize your onions for maximum shelf life
Whether you grow your own onions or buy them in bulk, these practical tips can help reduce food waste and save money throughout the year.
👉 If you enjoy gardening, homesteading, food preservation, and old-fashioned household wisdom, be sure to subscribe for more helpful videos every week!
#OnionStorage #FoodStorage #Homesteading #GardeningTips #FoodPreservation #GardenHarvest #SelfSufficiency #KitchenTips #GrowYourOwnFood #SimpleLiving
If you've ever had onions turn soft, moldy, or start sprouting after just a few weeks, this video is for you. Learn the traditional storage methods that can help keep onions fresh for months—without freezing, canning, or using expensive equipment.
In this video, you'll discover:
🧅 How to choose the best onions for long-term storage
🧺 The ideal temperature, humidity, and airflow for storing onions
❌ Common storage mistakes that cause onions to rot or sprout early
🏡 Traditional storage techniques that have been used for generations
📦 Simple ways to organize your onions for maximum shelf life
Whether you grow your own onions or buy them in bulk, these practical tips can help reduce food waste and save money throughout the year.
👉 If you enjoy gardening, homesteading, food preservation, and old-fashioned household wisdom, be sure to subscribe for more helpful videos every week!
#OnionStorage #FoodStorage #Homesteading #GardeningTips #FoodPreservation #GardenHarvest #SelfSufficiency #KitchenTips #GrowYourOwnFood #SimpleLiving
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00You bring the onions home from the store, still in their net bag, and you set them on the counter
00:05and think no more of it. And a few days later you open that bag and your heart sinks, for
00:12there are
00:13little green shoots pushing up out of the tops, and the bulbs give soft under your thumb, and the
00:20smell has gone off, and when you cook them the flavor is half gone, flat and weak, where it should
00:27be sharp and sweet. So you throw them out, or you cook them and are disappointed, and you tell yourself
00:35you simply bought too many. But you did not. Onions do not spoil because of time. They spoil because of
00:44one small habit and how they are kept. And once you change it, an onion will hold firm and full
00:51-flavored
00:52for months, right through the winter, the way the old women kept them in the cellar long before there
00:59was a store to buy them from. So here is the thing to understand, the root of the whole matter.
01:07An onion is not spoiled by the days passing over it. It is spoiled by damp. That thin, dry, papery
01:17skin
01:17on an onion, is not there for nothing. It is the onion's own protection. And it only does
01:24its work when there is dry air moving freely all around the bulb. Shut the air off, trap the
01:32damp against that skin, and the onion begins to sweat. And once it sweats, it softens and
01:39sprouts and rots. So the whole secret of keeping onions, every bit of it, comes down to what it
01:47is, one thing. Keep them dry, and keep the air moving around them. Everything I am about to show
01:55you is only that same truth in its different shapes. Quick word before we go further. My name is Esther
02:03Yoder, and the old household ways handed down to me, the kind I am sharing today, and a great many
02:10more
02:11besides, are far more than I could ever fit into one video. I have gathered the whole of them into
02:18a book,
02:18and you will find it at EliasYoder.com. If today's tips serve you, that is where the rest of what
02:26my
02:27mother and grandmother taught me lives, all in the one place. Now, to the onions. My grandmother kept
02:35onions by the bushel through every winter of her life, and never a store to help her. And she taught
02:42me at her own cellar door the whole of what keeps them. She would say, an onion wants to breathe,
02:50and if you smother it, it dies, plain as that. She never once brought an onion into a closed bag,
02:58for there were no such bags then. She pulled them from the garden, let them dry in the air till
03:05the
03:05skins went papery, and hung them or laid them where the air could move, and they saw the family clear
03:13through to spring. That is the wisdom under all of this, that an onion is a living thing that wants
03:21dry
03:21air, and the whole of keeping it is only giving it that. So let me take you through it, one
03:28step at a
03:29time, in good order. The very first thing, the moment you get your onions home, is to get them out
03:37of the
03:38plastic. That net or plastic bag they come in is the single biggest reason your onions spoil, for even a
03:46bag with a few holes in it, still traps the damp against them. And the onions sweat in there, and
03:53go
03:54soft and sprout before you can use them. So the first thing, before you do anything else, take them
04:01out of that bag. Do not leave them in it for convenience, for that convenience is the very thing
04:08rotting them. And along with that, one more thing about where you set them, for it matters as much.
04:15Keep your onions and your potatoes apart, in two different places, not together in the one bin the
04:23way most folk do for tidiness. The potato holds a great deal of water and gives it off steadily into
04:30the air around it, and that damp coming off the potatoes settles on the onions and makes them rot and
04:37sprout the faster. My grandmother knew to keep them apart in the cellar, the onions to their side and the
04:45potatoes to theirs. And it is the same in your kitchen. Just parting the two, onions here and potatoes there,
04:53and
04:54both will keep far longer and sprout far slower. It costs you nothing but the setting of them in two
05:01spots. Now, once they are out of the
05:04plastic, where do they go? Into something that breathes. A basket that the air passes through
05:09is ideal. An open woven basket or a mesh sack, anything with the air moving through it. And if you
05:17have no basket, a plain paper bag will do the job well, and you likely have one from the shopping
05:23already.
05:24Take that paper bag and punch a few small holes around the sides of it, like little windows for the
05:30air to
05:30pass in and out, so no damp gets shut inside. And put your onions in it. And do not crowd
05:36too many into the
05:37one bag, for if they are packed tight and pressing against one another, they cannot breathe and they
05:43spoil the faster. Give them room. A paper bag with a few holes punched in it and not overfilled makes
05:50a fine
05:50cheap keeper for onions. Then you set that basket or bag in the right sort of place, and the right
05:56place is dark,
05:57cool, and dry, with the air moving. A pantry, a cupboard you seldom open, a cool corner where the
06:04air is not shut up. Onions want it cool but not cold, somewhere in the range of a cool cellar,
06:11cooler than a warm kitchen but well above freezing. That cool holds them dormant, keeps them from waking
06:17and sprouting, and keeps them firm. A cool, dark, dry pantry or cellar corner with a little airflow
06:23is the whole of what they ask, and kept so, dry and airy and cool and out of the light.
06:29Onions will
06:30stay firm in your hand and full in their flavor for many weeks, even through the months of winter. All
06:36because you gave them the one thing they needed, which is air. Now here is a trick that looks strange
06:42the first time you see it, but it is old, used for generations, and it works beautifully, and it is
06:48my
06:48grandmother's own way near enough. All you need is a clean glove, or better still, a clean nylon stocking,
06:55which is the old way of it. You drop one onion down into the toe of it, and then you
07:00tie a knot in the
07:01stocking right above that onion, snug, and I like a bit of string tied there instead of a hard knot,
07:07for then it unties easy later. Then you drop in a second onion above the knot, and tie again,
07:12and a third, and so on, until you have a long chain of onions, each one shut in its own
07:19little pocket,
07:20none of them touching the next. And that is the beauty of it, for two reasons. The first is that
07:25each onion hangs separate, not touching its neighbors. So if one onion should go bad, it cannot spread its
07:32rot to the others, the way one bad onion in a bin will take the whole bin down with it.
07:37Each is kept
07:38to itself. And the second is that hung up this way, the air moves freely all around every single onion,
07:45keeping each skin dry, keeping the damp from ever settling, holding off the mold and the sprouting.
07:51You hang the whole chain in a cool airy place, a pantry corner, by a window, wherever the air stirs.
07:58And when you want an onion, you just snip or untie the bottom pocket and take one out,
08:03and the rest keep hanging. The stocking you use again and again. It is a simple thing, but done
08:09right, onions kept in the hanging chain stay firm and sweet and good for months on end. My people hung
08:16their onions to keep them so long before there was any other way, and it is as good today as
08:21it ever
08:21was. Now those are the ways to keep your whole onions, and they are the heart of it, the cool
08:27dark
08:27air and the hanging, the ways that ask no machine and no cord and cost you next to nothing. But
08:34the
08:34video I am sharing from goes on to two more ways that lean on the cold boxes, the ice box
08:39and the
08:40freezer, which I do not run myself, but many of you do. So I will give them to you plainly
08:45for what they
08:45are worth. For a cut onion is a different matter. For when you have used only half an onion and
08:50want to
08:51keep the other half, here is the way, for those of you with an ice box. A cut onion weeps
08:56its moisture
08:57from the cut face, and that wet is what turns it soft and slimy and sour. So first, before you
09:03store
09:03it, take a dry paper towel and blot the cut face dry, wiping that moisture off. Then lay a dry
09:10paper
09:10towel in the bottom of a lidded container, for the towel acts like a little sponge to drink up whatever
09:16damp the onion gives off, and keep the inside dry. Set the half onion in on the towel, close the
09:23lid tight,
09:24and put it in the ice box, and it keeps crisp and good about a week. If the towel goes
09:29damp after a few
09:30days, put in a fresh one, and the sealed lid does one more kindness, that it keeps the onion's strong
09:36smell from spreading through the ice box to your other food, while the towel takes up some of that
09:41smell besides. Keep it sealed, keep it dry, and the cut half is there crisp and ready when you want
09:47it.
09:48And the last way, for those with a freezer, is for when you want onions always ready to cook,
09:53and no worry of them spoiling at all. You peel your onions and cut them up, small for frying or
09:59larger
09:59for the soup pot, however you will use them. Then into a freezer bag or a container, and if you
10:05use a
10:06bag, press all the air out of it before you seal it, for that keeps the flavor and holds off
10:11spoilage,
10:11and into the freezer they go. Frozen onion keeps its good strong flavor for the cooking, and holds well
10:17about six months. And when you cook, you take out just the handful you need, and drop it straight
10:22into the hot pan, no thawing at all. That is the machine's way, and useful if you keep a freezer.
10:29My own way stays the cool cellar and the hanging chain, which want no power at all, but I will
10:34not
10:34keep a good tip from you for the sake of it. Now think a moment about why so few people
10:39know any of this,
10:40why you were left to watch your onions rot in the very bag they were sold to you in.
10:45It is worse than a plot, for no one had to arrange it. The onions are sold to you in
10:50the plastic bag,
10:50because plastic is cheap for the store, and stacks neat on the shelf. Not because it keeps the onion
10:56well, for it does the opposite. And there is no money in teaching you that the moment you get home,
11:01you should tear that bag open, and hang your onions in an old stocking in a cool corner. For a
11:07person who
11:07keeps her onions six months buys onions half as often. So the plastic bag is what you are handed,
11:13and the old knowing of the dry air and the hanging chain, which every grandmother had,
11:19just stopped being passed down, because no one profits by the telling.
11:22My grandmother's onions saw the winter through in the cellar for the cost of nothing. And somewhere
11:28between her cellar and your counter, that plain knowing slipped away, until a sprouting onion
11:33came to seem just the way of things, when it was only ever the bag it came in and the
11:38damp it was
11:38left to sit in. The mending of it is small, and it is in your own two hands, and it
11:43costs you nothing at
11:44all. The moment you get your onions home, you tear off the plastic, you part them from the potatoes,
11:51you set them in a breathing basket, or a holy paper bag in a cool, dark, airy corner, or you
11:56hang them
11:57in a chain in an old stocking, each in its pocket, none touching. And your onions hold firm and sweet
12:03through the winter for the cost of nothing, and you throw away no more soft sprouted bulbs. That is how
12:09it
12:09comes home, one torn bag, one hanging chain at a time, the keeping of your own pantry back in your
12:16own
12:16hands. So here is what I would ask of you. This very week, when you bring your onions home, tear
12:22off that
12:22plastic straight away, and hang them or basket them the way I showed you. And then come back and tell
12:27me in
12:28the comments how long they held firm for you against how they used to go. I do love to hear
12:33a thing kept that
12:33used to be thrown out. And tell me too, while you are there, your county and the age of your
12:38house. For the
12:39old houses so often have the real cellars and the cool, dark pantries built for just this keeping,
12:45and I learn from every one of you how the storing goes where you live. And if your own mother
12:50or
12:50grandmother had a way of keeping onions I have not named, tell me that most of all, for that is
12:55how
12:55this goes. We share what we were given. I read every comment, and I learn from you the way the
13:01old
13:02women learn from one another across the fence line, one pantry and one season at a time.
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