How to Dice an onion, a technical Skill demonstration

why Onions

I know a lot of us don’t like cutting onions. Its one of the most dreaded tasks when it comes to food prep. But, it can become a useful skill when done right. The onion is a very sensitive vegetable, with the strongest onion being the Red Onion and the weakest onion being the Vidalia Onion. Depending on what your cooking the onion that you use can vary.

Important Steps before cutting an onion

1. Make sure your cutting board won’t slip when your cutting your onion. This can be achieved by putting a damp towel under your cutting board.

2. Your knife has to be sharp and and not dull. The grooves on a dull knife make it harder to cut through any vegetable and is prone to ruining the cut then make a good one. A sharp knife ensures a clean cut and less of a chemical reaction to happen when cutting through.

3. Confidence!!! The more your scared of cutting the onion the more your going to feel a chemical reaction. Quick and precise give clean and tear free results.

4. If you are super sensitive to onions, you can put your onion in the fridge for a little bit to feel less of a reaction when you get to cut your onion. What also works is putting your face in cool air after getting attacked by onion, the burning feeling goes away.

How to cut an Onion

1. Cut off both the top and bottom of the onion

2. From the top of the onion cut down the middle to the bottom of the onion

3. Take one half of the onion and peel off the first layer, this is where most of the chemical reaction happens. Taking off the first layer prevents a lot of the struggle when cutting off the onion.

4. Using either the cut top or bottom end of the onion as a reference, place the onion face down and slice it all the way through to about a quarter inch from your reference or holding point.

   1. A trick to slicing your onion is to think of your half onion as the rising sun, you want to slice the sun’s rays and even in between the to achieve a smaller dice.

5. After slicing your onion, dice at the desired size

6. Repeats steps 3-5 to the other half the onion

7. Use diced onions to whatever recipe that you need.

Final Thoughts

Dicing onions is a skill that takes time to learn, but its a skill that can be mastered quickly. Make sure to prioritize your technique over your speed, speed comes with time. Note that slicing onions can be done this way to, just don’t slice the onions for dicing in step 4 and you can go from there. Have fun dicing your onions!