Sunday, July 28, 2013

How to Reduce the Sharpness of Raw Onions


I love raw onions but find they taste too strong. I feel as though their sharpness is just one notch too high for me. Thankfully there is an easy way to reduce the strong bite of raw onions slightly. And it only requires reordering your preparation steps.

To reduce the sharpness of raw onions, just marinate them for a few minutes (or up to half an hour) in something acidic: vinegar, lemon juice, or lime juice.


So when I want raw onions for salad, I slice them first before preparing the other ingredients, and douse them with some acidic liquid. Often I do this right in the salad serving bowl. In the picture above, I squeezed the juice of two limes over the red onions and then prepared the rest of the Thai minced pork salad.

In order to make the onions just a little below "piercing sharpness" you can leave them for about five minutes. To reduce them to "grandma pleasing sharpness", let them rest them for about half an hour.

In the picture below, I covered the sliced onions with balsamic vinegar. I was planning an easy shredded salad with carrots and courgettes (zucchini) as a side dish.


As I was nearing the end of the salad preparation, I mixed the olive oil and seasonings into the onions and vinegar to make the dressing. Then I tossed in everything else.


Do you like the sharp taste of raw onions?

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Comments (3)

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I agree, the taste of raw onion is a bit much and I will try this solution as I do like to use them in various things...thanks for the info and your photos were wonderful as well.
My recent post Wednesday with Donna Hay: Brussels Sprouts with Lemon, Garlic, and Almonds
1 reply · active 608 weeks ago
Thanks for the kind words and sorry for my late reply to your comment. I know some people love raw onion. Why? A mystery.
Nice tips, thanks :) I personally like the sharpness, but there are some recipes like salads where you don't want the flavour to be dominated by raw onion.
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