15 Delicious Ways to Cook With Red Onions (2024)

FAQs

What is the best use of red onions? ›

Relatively mild and sweet, red onions are the perfect aromatic to add raw to salads and sandwiches. But it's equally (if not more so) delicious when you cook them up in dishes like baked fish or steamed rice.

Just peel and slice the red onion as called for in your recipe, then submerge them in a bowl of cold or ice water. Let them sit for at least ten minutes, stirring once or twice, before draining and using them in your recipe. For added flavor, you can also soak the onions in lime juice, lemon juice, or vinegar.

Submerging them in cold water takes away that intense, sharp bite from the raw onion. The cold water helps the enzyme that causes onions to have their pungent flavor to leach out. Similarly, storing onions in the refrigerator will help mellow them out when you go to use them.

You can get rid of the strong taste by soaking sliced onions in ice water for 20 to 30 minutes or by sprinkling them with an acid such as vinegar. Onions soaked in ice water will get very crisp while those sprinkled with vinegar will soften a bit, but they will lose the strong taste and become sweeter.

Even though onions are freezer-friendly, stick to using them in cooked dishes rather than salads, because their texture will inevitably be different. Frozen onions will retain their flavor for 3-6 months — they're likely still good past that, but they won't be as potent.

Senior food editor Anna Stockwell says the quick rinse will make the sliced onions taste "sweeter and less sharp" than onions that haven't undergone the same treatment. Another bonus: the cold water will make the onions exceptionally crisp.

Then you just have to wait long enough for the vinegar to do its job, rinsing away the harsh sulfurous compounds, softening the onion, and giving it a pleasantly tart pop of flavor. If you use red wine vinegar, my personal favorite, the onions also turn an amazing hot-pink color.

These onions are colorful and spicy-to-mild flavor. Because of their bright color and crispy texture, they're great for salads, salsas, and other fresh recipes. They're also excellent sliced for sandwiches. With cooking, the color fades, but they're still delicious cooked.

The theory behind drinking onion water is based on onion's natural anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial effects. Along with ginger, garlic, and turmeric, onions are known to fight off inflammation, oxidation, and harmful bacteria and viruses.

Can you eat red onions raw? ›

Eating onions raw is another way to enjoy their unique flavor and reap their health benefits. Raw onions, especially red ones, are a common ingredient in salads due to their crisp texture and pungent, spicy flavor that adds a zesty punch. Raw onions are also used in salsas, sandwiches or ceviche.

For most of the year, you'll find red storage onions at the supermarket, which are pungent and spicy. In the summer months, you'll often find fresh red onions, which are much more mild, and lack a bit of the “onion-y ? flavor you'll find in their yellow and white cousins. They do much better raw than cooked.

What happened? Red onions—as well as other red produce, including cabbage and cherries—are rich in pigments called anthocyanins. When they're cooked with acid, their color intensifies, but when combined with an alkaline component, they can turn a startling bluish-green color.

Raw onions can be hard to digest, for some. Onions can cause a good deal more than just leaving you with that pungent onion-breath. Some people pass gas and feel digestive discomfort after eating onions in their raw form, while others burp and bloat.

Beyond their color differences, red and yellow onions have some different culinary attributes as well that make red onions superior for certain dishes. "Spicier than yellow onions when raw, red onions add a kick to salsas, sandwiches, and salads," Weinstein says.

It depends on the purpose you intend to use the onion for. For salads, salsas, and anything raw preparations, we recommend red onions because of their color and mild flavor. But if it's for cooking and adding flavor to dishes, yellow onion is the perfect choice because of its sweet flavor.

White and yellow onions are practically identical in terms of nutrition, but red onions contain anthocyanin that give them their rich color. Anthocyanins are a type of antioxidant that have been linked to reducing the risk of chronic diseases, like heart disease and cancer.

Eat raw onion small one or two pieces, or mix one tsp onion juice with one tsp of honey and take it twice a day morning and evening. 6. Daily add garlic and small onion in your diet.