Cutting onions can feel like a chore – but this easy hack makes the task a breeze.
Onions are a common vegetable in cooking. They form a key part of many dishes and therefore we spend a lot of time chopping them into fine little pieces ready to be thrown into curries, chilli and a multitude of pasta dishes.
But have you ever noticed how much of a pain it is to chop an onion? The slippery layers can often come apart and make you feel like you’re about to lop one of your fingers off, and that’s not even mentioning the enzymes and sulphurous compounds they release that make our eyes sting and water.
It turns out, however, that onion chopping doesn’t have to be a chore, and it’s only tricky because we make it hard for ourselves by doing it the wrong way.
According to one chef, cutting an onion the correct way will save you time in the kitchen as you’ll be able to dice it up in seconds – although the hack unfortunately does nothing to stop you from crying.
According to a video by Alma Fernanda, a Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef, most of us have been chopping our onions incorrectly. Many of us wouldn’t think twice about hacking off both ends of the onion, peeling off the skin, chopping it in half and then getting to work on dicing it – but this isn’t the right way.
Instead, we should only cut off one end of the onion, leaving the other end intact. Then, cut the onion in half so that each half still has some of the end connected to it.
Peel each half as normal, and then make incisions into the onion along the length of it, taking care not to cut all the way to the end where the root is. Then, you can cut in lines toward the root and your onion will be perfectly diced – leaving you with just the root to throw in the bin when you’re finished.
Some commenters on the post claimed the tip was “not a hack” as they argued it’s simply the “proper way” to chop an onion. However, Alma noted that “more people than you think” had no idea about the trick – as demonstrated by some other commenters.
One person said: “This is great! I never thought to leave the root end on. Thanks!”
As another added: “I love that I learned this the first day of culinary class knife skills and now it’s on my TikTok. It makes dicing sooo much easier.”
While a third posted: “My mum always did this growing up and it still took me so long to figure out how she did it.”
