Campervan Kevin’s Fresh Onions

 

Campervan Kevin’s Fresh Onions – save time, space, and water

This kitchen hack is from Campervan Kevin, youtube RVer.   Click here to read my article about Kevin’s incredible journey in my article, How Far Would You Go for a Friend?

Next time you reach for an onion, chop a little extra for Campervan Kevin’s fresh onions!

Fresh sliced onions are part of so many recipes.  But it’s hard to manage slicing onions in an RV, where you need to think about limited time, limited work space, washing the cutting board and knife–then wrapping a half-used onion and hoping it doesn’t smell up your refrigerator.

Kevin’s onion hack has worked great for us!  The key is NOT throwing out your pickle juice and jars when the pickles are all gone.

That goes for any kind of pickle juice–including Kevin’s favorite pickled peppers.

This hack is simple – slice or chop the onions to whatever size you’ll need in the future.  I use one jar for slices and another jar for chopped onions.

Slice and chop your onions, then drop the pieces into the pickle juice remaining in your jars, as shown in my photo below.

 

When the jar is full (or when you run out of onions), just put on the lid, give it a shake, and put it in the fridge.  If you want more flavor or heat, just toss in a hot pepper, garlic clove, herbs–use your imagination!

Great flavor and great benefits

 

The pickle juice slightly softens the onions, and makes them a little milder in things like potato salad, tuna salad, and topping off Kevin’s famous burgers.

The onions aren’t too vinegary, either, even after sitting for long periods in the fridge.  The longer they sit in the pickle juice, the milder their flavor.

If I have an extra bell pepper or garlic clove, I’ll add some pepper slices to the jar, too.

Last week, I used an entire jar of chopped onions that had been marinating in pickle juice for a long time in the fridge–in one afternoon!

 

 

It was easy to make three quick and tasty dishes from those onions.  (1) potato salad (2) meatloaf, and (3) chicken salad, shown above.

I made the chicken salad and the potato salad at the same time, using pretty much the same ingredients (except for the chicken and potatoes, that is.)

Kevin’s onions really jazz up burgers, sloppy joes, BBQ sandwiches, hot dogs, tuna salad, tossed salads…use your imagination!

That’s how I whipped up my chicken salad for a quick and easy lunch!   A little mayo, mustard, seasonings….whatever is handy.

I made it from a boneless chicken breast that was left over from BBQ grilling.

I just cut up the remaining chicken breast and dropped it into a sandwich ziplock.  Then I tossed it into the freezer until I needed a quick sandwich filling.

My tip for leftovers – take a few extra seconds to label each ziplock before you toss it in the fridge or freezer.  I keep a Sharpie right by the baggies.

I also keep a little notebook to write down leftovers as I put them into the freezer.  RV freezers are usually tiny, so I don’t want things just sitting in their forever.  I check my notebook before each grocery shop.  It sure saves time and money.

We mostly use leftover dinner meat for our lunch sandwiches.  It’s thrifty, and it’s easier for me to control our sodium intake that way–a big part of staying heart healthy, so we can keep RVing around this great country of ours!

Click here to check out Campervan Kevin’s youtube channel!  He shares lots of useful hacks for RV living.

 

Feature photo by Markus Spiske