How to Slice Onions

How to slice an onion

Please note:  I am left handed so for a fair percentage of you this is going to look backwards.  Don’t worry it works well when you do it right handed too.

How to Slice Onions

  1. Slice the onion in half and peel skin off from the top. It comes off most times in one piece.
  2. Trim the stem and ends and notice the grain of the onion
  3. Slice the onion WITH the grain until you start to get nervous the knife is too close to your fingers. That is from top to bottom.
  4. Flip the remaining piece down.
  5. Wow, much easier to slice that.
  6. Your perfectly sliced onion.

When you slice an onion with the grain and use a sharp knife, you break far less of the cells that release the volatile chemicals which combine and make you cry.  If you are very sensitive to onions you can also try putting them in the fridge first for about 20 minutes.  Your last resort can be goggles.

Another nice thing about slicing onions this way is that all the pieces are not stuck together.  They are separate right from the beginning.

Never slice towards yourself. See Knives

See another post on working with onions and this one on onion sizes.


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