TATT: Regrowing Green Onions

You know one thing I really don’t like about reading DIY blogs and tooling around Pinterest?  It always seems like just when I’m about to write a blog post on a topic, something that seems unique, a project I’ve done or a tip that I figure not everyone knows about, it never fails… a big blogger I follow posts about a similar project or a dozen pins on the topic show up in my Pinterest feed, and suddenly I feel completely unoriginal.  Should it matter?  Oh, probably not, but I do so hate to look like a complete copy cat.

That said, please allow me to feel better about offering you this tip by saying, “I knew about this BEFORE PINTEREST WAS EVEN INVENTED!”  Learned it from my grandmother actually, and you know if someone’s grandma did it, it’s gotta be good, right?

So here we go… regrowing green onions…

We love green onions around here.  I put them on pretty much every green salad I make, whether they’re accompanied by steak, tomatoes and croutons or a lovely combination of grilled chicken, strawberries, and almonds, green onions add a nice extra layer of flavor delight.  But how to always have them on hand when they go bad before we can eat through an entire bunch?  That my friends is the key question, and here is the answer…

1. Buy a bunch of green onions from the store.  Wrap the roots in a damp paper towel and keep them in the fridge, pulling them out as needed over the next few days to cut the tops off.

2. Once you have cut back to just above the top of the white part (or after they’ve been in your fridge for several days and you start to worry that they’ll go bad), put the remaining roots into a glass of water and set the glass near a window.  (They don’t need a ton of sun, but obviously any time you’re growing your own food, a little light helps.)

3. Wait a week or so, adding water to the glass as needed.  And you will get something like this…

You can now proceed to clip off what you need and then just set those babies back into the glass of water to keep on growing!

And now the caveats… this only works for a while, the roots will eventually get mushy and the flavor of the onions will become less potent.  When that happens, it’s time to get yourself a new bunch o’ onions.  Also, the water can get stinky, so you might need to change it out periodically if you don’t love the smell of onion water.  But really, who doesn’t?!

So there you go, regrowing green onions, brought to you today by my grandmother, and also a bazillion people on Pinterest apparently.

Happy salads!

4 thoughts on “TATT: Regrowing Green Onions

  1. Ha Ha! My education is apparently lacking. I’ve always used the bulb portion and tossed the green!

    • You can eat both parts actually! The white part is crunchier and has a stronger flavor than the green, so it just depends on what taste you’re seeking whether to use the white or green or both. I like both myself, but if you cut the bulb too far down, it won’t grow back (or it will take forever, if it does), which is why we generally just eat the tops.

  2. So that’s why those onions were sitting on your counter at Alethea’s birthday party! Pretty slick Elise.

    • I’ve been trying to eat more salads lately, so there are pretty much always green onions on our counter these days!

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