Cooking salt to get rid of the onion smell?

I dread handling onions. They have a terrible smell and make my eyes sting and water for hours. But I was almost out of onion in the freezer, so I knew I needed to tackle that job!

I chopped up several onions and dropped spoonfuls onto a baking sheet. After freezing the onions, I removed the onion clumps from the pan and put them into a bag and then back into the freezer to use in the future. This is an easy way to always have chopped onions ready for whatever I am cooking instead of having to chop a little bit every time I need them. Mom did this for years and taught us girls to do the same! :)

There is a bad side to this, though. The onion smell remains on the pans for weeks, even when they are washed multiple times and is especially awful when I heat the pans and bake cookies using them. Chocolate chip cookies and onions - not a good combintation!

Several years ago I started using different pans for cookies and Mom would use the same ones for onions. But I knew there had to be a way to get rid of the smell! After doing some Google searching, I discovered just ordinary salt would take out the smell. Wash and dry the pans, coat with table salt and cook in the oven until salt turns brown (about 20 min.). And guess what? It works! I couldn't smell onion even after I heated up the pans again! Now the pans can be used for somthing other than just onions!