Chopping Onions

A while back, I overheard someone mention that she wasn't sure the best way to cut up onions for recipes. It's one of those things that many of us know how to do, but obviously others are a little confused about it. If you haven't grown up seeing something done, it can be a little confusing.

Sooo...here's my crash course on chopping onions.

Last night, I cooked vegetarian chili. (I'll post that in my Meatless Monday, in a few minutes.) For that, I tend to use both a red AND a yellow/white onion; since it's easiest to see the steps on the red onion, that's which one I'll be cutting up for this. (It works the same way for the white onion.)

So, here we've got both the red and yellow onions:



You'll notice that both onions have a head and tail (or think of them as north and south poles). We're going to started there.

Okay, with a sharp knife, cut off both ends/"poles" from the onions.



Then slice through the papery-outer layers of the onion, as well as maybe the first layer of the onion, from end to end.



After you've pulled that off, cut the onion in half, from end to end.



Then cut each half along parallel to the first cut.



Now, cut the half parallel to where the ends were.



Now, cut each half length-wise, from end to end.



Here are both halves cut up.



Each onion is layered like this, so use the same way of cutting up an onion, and you'll have diced onions, every time.