How to dice an onion

Have you ever experimented with how to dice an onion? Or simply observed how other people dice onions. On Food Network for example?

When I do that I usually don't come away thinking, "Wow that is way faster than how I am doing it". In fact, I think they make it more difficult than it needs to be. For one, if you have noticed, an onion is naturally layered (!) which means that when you cut it from the right angle, the onion will be diced without you having to cut into the onion horizontally first, yet, I see many people do this step.

I am here to tell you how you can shave off at least 15 seconds of your onion cutting duties. You're welcome!

The other thing I have noticed is that some people spend an enormous time peeling an onion. They peel the onion whole - like I did above for my onion vanity shot. It's hard to do it that way. You know what is easy? Cutting the onion in half first, then peel it.

Ok, ok, I am giving away all the secrets before we even get to this awesome graphic I made:

Here is how I cut an onion

1. Cut the onion in half, lengthwise.
2. Cut off the bottoms, but not the top - they are perfect as handles.
3. Now remove the outer layer or layers in one go.
4. Lay the onion flat on the cut side and make slits. This is the step where you omit the horizontal cutting.
5. Then slice it from the top until you get close to your fingers.
6. Then tilt the onion forward onto the side you most recently cut
7. Continue slicing.
8. You are already done, but my graphic needs 9 images.
9. You can run your knife through two or three times for a finer dice.
   

Did I just potentially save you bundles of seconds on onion dicing? I hope I did.

If you have improvements on this technique, I would love to hear them.

While we are on the topic of onions, one thing I do, is that I always use red onions. I just think they taste better (best, actually). It makes it easier to shop and onion flavor, I find, is pretty much onion flavor. I mean, if taste tested side by side, you might taste a difference between yellow onion, shallots, and red onions and whatever onion things are out there, but honestly, have you ever had a dish and thought to yourself, "They clearly used the wrong onion in this dish!". Yeah, me either.

If I have less things to buy, there is less chance of food waste, so I stick with red onions. It's just simpler.

About Katja Kromann

I am a Danish American decorating life in Seattle. I love all things design and I love coming up with or simply documenting the dishes we eat so that I can go here for inspiration.

I can’t think of anything more fun than coming up with a recipe or project, making it, photographing it and sharing it with you on my websites.

AHomeForDesign.com AHomeForFood.com AHomeForCrafts.com My Portfolio