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Help--no onions or garlic

11 years ago

My sister cannot eat onions or garlic or their relatives such as chives, leeks, scallions, etc. What would be good substitutes to flavor soups and broth and just about everything that we normally use them in to give a nice flavor?

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Comments (7)

grainlady_ks
11 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
You will have to rely on recipes that can stand on their own without onions/garlic, etc. Personally, I've learned to live without them due to the fructans as someone who follows a low-FODMAP diet, although I can still eat chives (thankfully).

Asafoetida Powder is suggested in low-FODMAP diets, although I've never used it. Balsamic vinegar and coconut aminos (a soy-free substitute for soy sauce) are also good choices.

-Grainlady
Lars
11 years ago
Things that come to my mind include mushrooms, chilies (mild or not so mild), celery, radishes, and perhaps other root vegetables, such as parsnips and turnips. I have used all of these ingredients in soups and broth.
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Absolutely yes you can eat those green tops of mature plants! I say mature plants because scallions are only the tender young greens, and not just all green tops. And I'm assuming you mean the mature green tops that ate past scallion stage. I point this out because the growth difference in how one can or shouldn't use it depends on age. Like with chickens. Scallions are pullets, scape and leaf harvest are fryers, and bulbs are roosters. Not much good in rooster age greens. But darn fine bulbs. Garlic scapes in tender stage are amazing fresh sautéed or chopped up as a fresh green garlic at the end of cooking or raw in salads and such. Slightly less tender scapes of just a week or two later picking are beyond amazing pickled. I always reserve my scapes for pickling. They are beautiful coiled up in the jar to boot. garlic greens are tougher, not so good for fresh eating by harvest time. And usually curing time kind of leaves them for crap for dried eating. However, at the same time I harvest scapes, I also harvest a leaf or two from each plant to directly rough chop up like kale and dehydrate. The resulting garlic leaf is a nice addition to stock making. It gets strained off and discarded with the rest of the solids. I haven't used it in soups and such, it's kind of tough for that. I use onion greens too. When onions go out of season, and this is usually late winter around here, I put aside the spoilers and sprouters that come up and pot them up in pots on the kitchen window. We trim off onion tops like chives to throw into all sorts of cooking. It's a nice fresh onion spruce up at those end dreary days of winter when we are running on a lot of canned, dried and frozen stuff, and nothing else is growing fast enough, lol. And they spend themselves out by mid spring when lots of stuff is flush. Harvest time onion greens can be good for dehydrating too if you treat them like garlic and pick a leaf or two off each one a wee bit prior to bulb harvesting. Onions are a bit more tender IMO. Dried, they are good in stock, soups, stews, and powdered up to add to various seasoning mixes. As a pickling addition. I've used fresh onion leaves as presentation addition. Tastes good after pickling too if the leaves are at that late tender stage like garlic scapes for pickling. And I've never found that culling out some leaves early hurts the plants at all. Nor does culling out the scapes, I'm of the camp that it's good for the bulb.
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Ironic, but my husband is a type-1 diabetic,Sleevendog. I am well aware of spikes, glucagon injections, A1c levels etc. etc.Sourdough bread (more than 30 hours start to finish most passive) works for him, so I make it every week (and also mailed a loaf to my daughter in Boston for $14.95:). We, like Annie, have several health issues that we work with: nut allergy (anaphylaxis), dairy allergy, two withulcerative colitis, type-2 diabetes and my daughter’s Lo FODMAP diet and SIBO diagnosis. I also pretty much cook and deliver food to my elderly parents every week. We go out to dinner maybe four times a year. Oh, and look, I know how to make stock (shaking my head) The lo FODMAP diet, is by the way, the most restrictive diet I've worked with. Not only the foods, but quantities allowed. That said, it is a game changer for digestive issues. We'll agree to disagree about horrid advice. Kate Scarlata "Is a Boston-based registered dietitian and NY Times best selling author with 25+ years of digestive health experience. She was awarded Best Dietitian 2016 by Boston Magazine" and has spoken at numerous conferences from Harvard Medical School to Monash University. She is an exceptional resource and pioneer expert on Lo FODMAP (diet in general). She was also the one who one year after testing and continuing illness, found my daughter's missed SIBO diagnosis, advocated for her and recommended a new doctor who treated. I think having commercial broth on hand is okay. You don’t. I won't presume that food deserts don't exist, that everyone can afford fresh ingredients and has the time and means to drive around to get them, has the kitchen space, and should prioritize making stock rather than pursue other interests. I also know that my mother who has crippling arthritis still enjoys making soup -- she is unable to pick chicken off bones, but loves throwing frozen vegetables in broth with some rice or pasta -- it gives her a feeling of still being able to cook, and I'm grateful. And yes, I give her frozen packages of my stock too, but the commercial stock is okay too. Annie, an outlier for me was finding my daughter can only dispose of food scraps once a week – either they could compost (in a very teeny, tiny apartment) or they have to freeze (in already full freezer) them until garbage day. Oh, and I found their garbage disposal is wonky at best:) HA! Cathy in SWPA BTW, this is going down the road of the Cream of Mushroom soup posts of the past for me.
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plllog
11 years ago
I've used parsnips and turnips with good success as direct substitutes for onions in things like spaghetti sauce and meatballs and quiche. The thing is that they handle differently. Turnips are a lot harder than onions, and not as sweet, with a good pungency. They have a lot of water which doesn't weep out nearly as quickly, so they're best used minced, and cooked down at a good heat until a lot of the liquid reduces off and they're starting to brown, before adding to a soup or sauce, or the quiche. Basically the same as for when you'd saute or brown onions. For baked meatballs (which get hotter than just pan browning on the stove), I put parsnips through the FP to mince and mix in raw, as I would onions, and they're fine.
ntt_hou
11 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
I don't always use onions & garlic in soup. I find that carrots and some greens such as mustard greens add lots of flavor to the soup.

When I add tomatoes in the soup, I also add some dry Italian mix seasonings. They seem to go together and add good flavor to the soup.
carolb_w_fl_coastal_9/10
11 years ago
I often use curry powder or African spice blends plus orange, lemon or lime juice w/o onions/garlic when preparing meats & main dishes & we don't miss the onion/garlic @ all. I have a Moroccan style blend that is made from cumin, cinnamon, coriander, black pepper & ground chile powder (not chili powder). Another seasoning I like very much for roasting meats is salt, pepper, ground coriander & crushed/chopped rosemary or Italian herbs - no need for alliums @ all.

When I cook broccoli, I just use butter, salt & pepper w/ a pinch of nutmeg - nutmeg is very good in dishes containing milk, butter &/or cream.

Thinking some spice blends may contain onion/garlic powder, so check labels...
tami_ohio
11 years ago
I am one who is allergic to garlic, tho I can still eat onions. I just leave it out of whatever I am cooking. There are usually enough other things in the recipes that it isn't missed. We have had mashed potatoes with horseradish in instead of garlic. It would depend on what you are making whether you could use horseradish or not, and I would be very sparing with it if you choose to try it.
eld6161
11 years ago
What are her favorite recipes? I would start from there. If you like garlic and onions and are used to them in your tried and true recipes, I think you will be disappointed if you leave them out or try to subsiture.

I would start googling recipes without onion and garlic and see what comes up.

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