Perpetual Green Onions and a Dip Recipe

Back in November, one of my Friday Finds was a tip about keeping green onions in water from Homemade Serenity.  She indicated that the onions would last indefinitely.  I was anxious to try this out.   As I said then, I never seem to have green onions when I need them.  We live a long way from town so I don’t just jump in the car and go buy some.  Most of the  time I would just sub regular onions, but the taste is not quite the same.

Around Christmas, I finally remembered to buy a bunch of onions.  I put them in a little jar with water to see what would happen.  Well, the onions just keep growing and growing.  I have cut some off and used them many times.  They grow fast as I will show here:

This photo was taken on Sunday, January 22, 2012.  I had just cut some onions off to use in a recipe.

This photo was taken on Friday, January 27, 2012.  You can see how much growth there has been with some of the onions. 

I do not have a particularly sunny place to leave these and just set them on my kitchen window sill during the day.  You can almost see them grow.  I pour the water out of the jar and put in fresh every three or four days.

Here is a picture of one of the onions.  You can see the new growth growing out between the old growth that was cut off.  I have no idea how long this bunch will last; but, at this point, it has been a month.  A pretty good return on a .44 investment, I think.  Green onions are on sale this week so I am going to purchase one more bunch and add them to my jar.

Of course, now my challenge is that I have lots of green onions so they go in almost anything I can think of.  We don’t eat green peppers so I use the onions in recipes that call for green pepper so I at least get the color.  If I want some of the white part, I just take a whole onion out of the jar and use it.  There is an outside layer that forms on the white that needs to be stripped off as well as the root removed.

One place that I use the onions is in this dip recipe.  You can play around with the basic recipe and add cheese, bacon, seasonings, etc.   I often use Greek yogurt in place of the sour cream.

Green Onion Dip
from Best Foods Mayonnaise

1 c. mayonnaise, low fat or fat free is OK
1 c. sour cream, low fat or fat free is OK or use Green yogurt
1/2 c. sliced green onions
1/2 c. parsley sprigs
1 t. Dijon mustard
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed

Blend all ingredients together in a blender or food processor until almost smooth.  Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours.  Makes 2 cups.

Laura over at Real Mom Kitchen recently posted a recipe for Bacon and Green Onion Cheese Ball that I am going to try very soon.

This idea seems to really work.  If you like green onions, you might want to give it a try.

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