No big chunks in my salsa or guacamole when I take the time to do it right!
There’s no denying that red onion adds some zing to a salsa (like our favorite), some guacamole, or a chopped salad. But in my household, nobody likes when you can actually bite into the onion pieces.
So I’ve got my little method of dicing the onion into teeny tiny pieces. I don’t know that it would satisfy any knife skills rules, but it works well for us. And at two separate photo shoots, Leah and Victoria watched me do it and were fascinated by the results. Victoria insisted it was something to be posted here on Between Carpools – so here it is!
It’s important to note that I don’t even attempt to do this to a full onion. It’ll just fall apart. And we usually don’t need more than half the onion anyway, so it works. And use a large, sharp knife. You don’t want to be rocking the knife too much and you’ll have to do that with a smaller knife.
Start by peeling the onion and cutting off the top and bottom so you have flat sides, with the rings going across. Make vertical cuts as closely together as possible, until about halfway down the onion.
Then rotate the onion and make the same cuts, crossing over the first set. (At this point my kids say it looks like a math example when they teach fractions.)
Then turn the onion on its side and again make those same vertical cuts as closely together as possible. This is when the confetti will start falling away from the knife.
Stop when you get to the bottom of the first set of cuts so you don’t end up with some bigger pieces mixed in.
And that’s it! Just use the rest of the onion for something else like a cucumber salad or some crudo.
Looks cool! gonna try that.
just note that you can’t do it on Shabbos because it is tochen (grinding) to chop so small.
I’m laughing to myself because that’s how I grew up cutting onions and my kids also watch in fascination. And it was my father who taught it to my mother! I scrolled to the bottom of the article to see if Renee wrote it because I’m from Europe too but hey it was Esti.
Thanks for all your content.
Great idea!
This is how my mom always diced onions, holding the onion over the pot, and using her hand ( the one that wasn’t cutting) as the cutting board. I shall not attempt such feats, and also, I know the ‘correct’ way to dice an onion. But hey she’s much faster and her food is better 🙂
My mother uses this “grid” method to chop cucumbers and tomatoes for Israeli salad. Pieces come out so tiny.
This is the most life changing hack for me since the tomato paste one brilliant! Thank you!
this article is very useful, thank you for making a good article
Awesome!!!!
I wish you do a video to demonstrate!!!!