What do you do with a whole red onion when you only need a little bit? These are two “just a little bit of red onion” solutions.
A little bit of red onion goes a long way in a lot of dishes. In the past, we showed you a cute hack for getting that really tiny dice you want for your guacamole here.
But it’s some finely diced red onion like you see in a longtime fav Corn Feta Salad in or some thinly sliced red onion like in our new favorite Cauliflower Chickpea Salad (slice it the way you like it) or when you simply want to add some to your own personal salad, most often, you only use a portion of the onion.
One reader shared this brilliant idea. She loves adding a little fresh red onion to dishes. For a salad. For on top of avocado toast. Or any other place where red onion just finishes that dish.
After one Yom Tov, after serving a side dish that included pearl red onions, she had some of those cute little onions leftover and put them in her onion basket.
She said, “I found myself reaching for one whenever I needed just that tiny tang of red onion. It was perfect! Not only do they last for weeks, but the 1-inch balls give me the perfect amount of onion, and they are just that much cuter when cut into little rings. I buy them all the time now.”
What have the rest of us been doing until now after preparing all those recipes that only call for ½ of a red onion?
The Gemara says that it is dangerous to eat raw peeled onion that was left overnight, even if it was left in sealed packaging. The exception is that if the peel or root is left on. It rarely comes up with regular onions because we’re always dicing and cooking the whole thing, but with red onions, it comes up all the time.
So, when we need just a portion of an onion, we slice off that portion, leaving the root intact as you see here.
When you store the onion in the fridge, make sure to remember or mark down on the packaging whether you used a dairy, meat, or pareve knife so you know the status of your leftover red onion.
There you have it–two ways to enjoy just a bit of red onion. Or you can just make a batch of Pickled Red Onions with the rest!
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