How to cut an onion; mincing

Just generally mincing about really

Mincing is close to grating, but the onion retains a lot more moisture when mincing. It’s basically cutting it up really really fine so WTF! (Watch Those Fingers)

Start by finely dicing an onion.

Then all you need to do is finely chop it up.

“My local spring onions have started singing hip hop. The little rap scallions.”

So there you have it, the most commonly used way of prepping an onion.

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More to come soon!

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How to cut an onion; rings

Save stacks of cash by making your own onion rings

First you need to peel a whole onion, then cut the top off.

Next simply slice the onion lengthways to create solid discs of onion.

To finish, use your hands to pop the ring out from the layers of the onion.

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How to cut an onion; dicing

My favourite way to cut an onion

I like this the most because i think diced onion brings out the best flavour, also it cooks the fastest as the onion is cut into smaller pieces.

Start by taking half of a peeled onion and lay it flat side down on a chopping board.

Use the lines on the onion as a rough guide

If you look at the onion you should see faint lines from the root to the top of the onion, use these as a rough guide to slide along the onion, stay as close to the root as you can.

Try and cut as close to the root as you can

Turn the onion 90° and proceed to cut as you would if you were slicing it lengthways.

Et voila! The result is a pile of lovely diced onion.

Finely diced onion

This is pretty much the same process as above, but before dicing make 2 incisions into the onion sideways (keep the onion on the chopping board, i only picked it up to demonstrate)

Make 2 or 3 incisions in the onion sideways

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How to cut an onion; slicing (the other way)

Again, start by taking half of a peeled onion

This time cut the root off but cutting 2-3 cm away from it.

Then proceed to slice through the onion as such; horizontally as opposed to vertically. You’ll notice i’m resting the blade on my finger tip rather than my knuckles, this is only through cutting so many onions but i would advise to still rest the blade on your knuckles.

Cut in half for smaller strands of onion

This results in strand of onion that are straighter than when you cut it lengthwise. If you want shorter strands just cut the onion in half once lengthways before slicing into strips.

Small, straight(ish) strands of onion. Nice in a salad

I personally prefer this method of slicing as the onion cooks quicker because it’s in smaller pieces, I also prefer to cut it quite finely this way when putting raw onion in a salad/sandwich as I find it looks a bit nicer and it’s a lot more pleasant than chewing on a chunky lengthways slice of onion, to each their own though.

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How to prep/cut an onion like a pro, with plenty of gifs

Peel and chop, peel and chop..

The humble onion, bringing mankind to tears since it’s existence. Possibly one of my favourite, or at least most commonly used ingredients.

There is so much you can do with an onion, as i’ll show in later recipe posts, and knowing how to cut an onion properly can save a lot of time and stress. I would say on average i probably peel, slice,dice and cut up around 10-15 onions a day; for the last 15 years (!) so i guess i’ve got a bit of experience when it comes to prepping and advice on how to cut an onion properly.

How to cut an onion

I find that far too often i’ve been asked how to cut an onion, or i’ve witnessed someone trying to cut an onion when they clearly have no idea how to cut an onion (it can be quite painful to watch but then if you’ve never been taught, you don’t know!) so here is a complete guide on how to cut an onion.

It goes without saying that a nice sharp knife is a big advantage when figuring out how to cut an onion (check this post on how to keep your knives in good check). Always WTF! (Watch Those Fingers!) because its not fun when you bleed on everything for 2 and a half hours.

When it comes to onions remember the skins go nicely in a stock (if you’ve got one on the go) so just chuck them in the stockpot rather than the bin. In terms of prep there’s 5 (or 6) basic ways to prepare and cut an onion.

These consist of;

Slicing (lengthways)
Slicing (the other way) -check terminology?
Dicing and fine dicing
Rings
Mincing

I’ll go into each one separately.

But first things first, you need to remove the aforementioned skin (stock it!) to get to the fleshy, oniony goodness.

How to peel an onion

How to peel an onion? There are 2 ways (that i know of) that work best, one for when you need to use the onion straight away, and one for when you want the onion kept whole but with no skin (i.e for service or an event/party etc.).

When storing onion that are not cut up but have been peeled be sure to keep them in the fridge.

If you’ve heard or read anywhere than keeping sliced/diced/cut up onion in the fridge is dangerous then i can tell you now that i’ve been doing it my entire cooking career, and have been taught to do it by others, though it only lasts around 3 days i have never experienced any kind of problem (health or otherwise) storing cut up onion in the fridge, just keep it in an air tight container.

It can save you a lot of time (or what seems like a lot) if you just prep all your onion at onces (i.e a 2.5kg bag from the supermarket), thought just remember if you want to pre slice it to not do too much due to the shelf life.

Buying pre prepared vegetables, especially onions from supermarkets is more of a waste of your money than you think, to put it into perspective a bit, 1kg of sliced red onions from tesco comes in at £5.56/kg! You can get frozen sliced red onion at £2/kg but come on, frozen raw onions? We want nutrients from our food! Anyway to compare with the alternative, fresh, crisp, flavoursome red onions they cost a grand total of £1/kg.

I don’t know about you, but if you either look in the long term, or in terms of scaling up it’s a gigantic saving, for what is quite honestly 5 minutes work, possibly 10 if that.

Apologies for the rambling i just hate so see money wasted, especially on food. Eating well really doesn’t have to be expensive if you know how to get the most from your ingredients which i will (hopefully) help you realise!

On to the actual point i was trying to make, to peel an onion you need;

A knife, or something sharp
A chopping board, preferably not the floor

You can just do it with your hands, but assuming you want to slice or dice it after them i’m afraid they won’t work for that, and we have knives for a reason.

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