Comments on: How can I reuse or recycle onion skins?

By: Recycling Electronics

Recycling Electronics — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:34:41 +0000

Onion skins are fully compostable. I know compost heaps don’t seem to be fashionable these days, but they are a practical means of producing material suitable for home production of natural garden fertiliser.

By: aga

aga — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 22:10:53 +0000

i boil the skins for a few minutes then drink the tea for chesty coughs. it is really good!

By: Alexis

Alexis — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 10:15:31 +0000

you could also use rhubarb leaves as mordant for dye

By: Dee McLeod

Dee McLeod — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 14:24:00 +0000

There is a medicinal use for onion skins as well. If you are plagued with leg cramps, drink the tea made from the skins. Simply take the skins from one to two onions, place in a cup, pour boiling water over skins, cover with a saucer and let sit for an hour. Drink before bedtime. You should notice relief from cramping in about a week. Another tip about how to get lots of skins but not have excess onions: when you go to buy your onions, preferably organic, scoop up all the excess skins that the store usually throws away, place in a bag and buy an onion or two.

By: hat

hat — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 15:42:55 +0000

cats usually can have tragic reactions to onions so best not to give them.

By: Esther

Esther — Tue, 18 May 2010 16:43:36 +0000

This might sound strange, but my aunt used onion skins as hair dye. I’m not familiar with the procedure, but her hair was a nice golden brown.

By: Susan

Susan — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 01:03:14 +0000

Alum and cream of tarter is the mordant to use for wools, you want to use tannin for cottons.

By: Ripe Green Ideas

Ripe Green Ideas — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 01:09:01 +0000

stock up on onion skins for Easter: then stick them in boiling water, get the dye, and then naturally dye your eggs for easter. You’ll get fantastic shades of orange and golds.

and you can eat the hard boiled eggs…

By: Agata

Agata — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:51:34 +0000

I use onion skin as cats playstuff-I give him an old blanket and put some peels on it-Michi love crushing them!

By: Zeca

Zeca — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 11:01:38 +0000

Onion skin are great as an infusion (tea) for when you get a cold or sore throat.

By: Peg

Peg — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:47:26 +0000

I keep 4 “soup to be” containers in my freezer. One is for vegetables and their cooking liquid, left over from dinner and the rinse water used to rinse out “empty” ketchup containers. Various leftover pastas are put in this container, as well. The 2nd is for peelings (onion skins, potato peelings, celery leaves and bits, carrot peelings, etc. for vegetable stock. The contents of the peeling container is boiled, cooled and put through a food mill. I usually use this for a creamed soup base. I also brown hamburger, then rinse it with hot water, and drain. The drained water (minus fat) becomes broth, and go into the “beef soup” container along with beef bones and trimmings. Last, I save chicken/turkey skin, bones, trimmings, and save for a poultry based soup. That teaspoon or tablespoon of gravy that’s too “little” to save also goes into this pot. I may add the saved vegetables to any one of the stocks to make soup.

By: Heather Cawte

Heather Cawte — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:44:19 +0000

This site gives a really easy way to dye stuff with onion skins – apparently the best mordant is a mix of alum and cream of tartar:

http://www.yummyscience.co.uk/ys_pages/ys_onions.html

By: Nicole

Nicole — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:14:41 +0000

I usually save the skins for stock as well, or use unpeeled onions like Joanna. Ditto for garlic heads.

By: Alice

Alice — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:18:17 +0000

Every dye needs a mordent, which is what makes the dye stick and not just wash out. Does anyone know what the mordent for onion skins is?

By: Joanna

Joanna — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:17:30 +0000

I always use unpeeled onions when I’m making stock, because the skins add a golden colour – so you could just lob in the skins. It would be a particularly good thing to do if you were making vegetable stock. There really isn’t any need to buy salty stock cubes/powder, making stock is very little effort

Joanna