Onion Powder

Let me tell you about Onion Powder, and why it deserves more respect than it gets.

Fresh onion fights you — it stings your eyes, it's wet, it burns if you look away from the pan for a second. Onion Powder is onion that gave up all that water. You feel the difference in your hand: fresh onion is heavy and slippery, Onion Powder runs dry and fine through your fingers, no sting in the air above the jar. That's why it works where fresh onion can't: in a dry spice mix, in a marinade, in a rub you pat onto meat before it goes near heat.

Choose it by the nose, not the eye. Good Onion Powder smells like onion, warm and a little sweet, not dusty, not like cardboard. If it smells flat, or faintly burnt, leave it on the shelf — that smell carries straight into whatever you cook.

Some people say Onion Powder is just a lazy substitute, weaker than fresh. No! A pinch goes a long way — it's onion without the water to dilute it. The mistake that belief leads to: people dump in far more than they need, "to compensate," and tip the dish into over-seasoning instead of letting a pinch do the work.