Food Waste to Good Taste: 3 ways to use your onion skins

‘Food Waste to Good Taste’ is an exciting campaign that we are running in partnership with @HKU_Science and @Green.Hospitality. The study will measure the nutritional value of food scraps from restaurants across Hong Kong to highlight the local food waste issue in two folds: from an environmental perspective and from a health perspective. The campaign hopes to encourage restaurants and consumers to be more conscious of the loss of nutritious food waste and optimise food scraps into new recipes to further reduce food waste.

Onion Skin Ash

If you are looking for a creative way to upcycle your onion skins, then this recipe is just for you. This onion skin ash provides a smokey element to your dishes and elevates the flavour profile without much work. It can be added to any savoury dishes, for examples soups, roasted vegetables or meats. It also works in sauces. So sprinkle away! 

(Top tip: feel free to make this recipe with your leftover garlic skins to add even more flavour)

Ingredients:

• Onion skins

Recipe:

• Preheat the oven to 230ºC/475F 

• Place the onion skins on a baking tray and spread them out evenly. 

• Ensure only the outer dried skins are used and not the layers that still contain moisture.

• Bake for around 30-40 minutes, until the skins turn very dark brown.

• Transfer the skins into a food processor. Add 5 drops of water into the food processor for a tiny bit of moisture so the skins don’t fly around too much. Process until the skins are finely blended. 

Leftover Vegetables Stock

This is probably the handiest recipe EVER that you want to save in your repertoire: it’s simple, it’s zero-waste and it’s so easy. Whether you have wilted vegetables in your pantry or vegetable scraps that you can’t use in your dish, save ALL of them. You can even store them in a food storage bag in the freezer until you have collected enough variety to make a flavourful stock base. From floppy carrots to onion skins, to potato peels and leek tops, this recipe does not discriminate!

Ingredients:

• Onion skins

• Any wilted or unused vegetables 

• Vegetables scraps

Recipe:

• Look through your fridge/pantry for any veggies that are no longer in their peak condition (this includes the vegetables scraps you would have set aside like onion skins or leek tops, or wilted vegetables).

• Chop the wilted veggies into chunks.

• Store the veggie chunks and veggie scraps into a storage bag and place the bag in the freezer. Keep adding to the bag until full.

• When you’re ready to make a vegetable stock, take the veggie bag out of the freezer and boil your vegetables chunks and scraps for at least 30 minutes. Boil up to 2 hours to maximise the flavour.

• Strain the vegetable pieces, then add salt and pepper to taste.

• Use the delicious stock as a base for a soup or sauce. You can also pour the stock into an ice cube tray to freeze for later use.

Onion Skin Tea

Yes you heard right, onion skin tea! This recipe calls out for us to utilise the onions as much as possible. Whilst it might not sound like the most appealing beverage, you can sweeten the natural tea by adding honey or lemon to your taste. This tea is full of health benefits, packed with antioxidants, the tea can also help with reducing cramps and bloating. 

Ingredients:

• 1 whole onion skin

• 1 litre of water

• Optional: honey and lemon juice

Recipe:

• Boil water in a kettle. 

• At the same time, collect your onion skins into a tea infuser. 

• Allow the onion skins to steep in the hot water until the colour becomes deep red amber. Note: colour may vary depending on the type of onion you choose to use. 

• Optional: add honey and/or lemon juice to add more flavour in the onion skin tea.