Cooking
Section Highlights:
About Onions | Cooking Tips | Nutrition & Health
About Onions
Onions come in three colors - yellow, red, and white. Approximately 87 percent of the crop is devoted to yellow onion production, with about 8 percent red onions and 5 percent white onions.
Yellow onions are full-flavored and are a reliable standby for cooking almost anything. Yellow onions turn a rich, dark brown when cooked and give French Onion Soup its tangy sweet flavor. The red onion, with its wonderful color, is a good choice for fresh uses or in grilling and char-broiling. White onions are the traditional onion used in classic Mexican cuisine. They have a golden color and sweet flavor when sautéed.
Onions range in size from less than 1 inch in diameter (creamers/boilers) to more than 4.5 inches in diameter (super colossal). The most common sizes of onions sold in the United States are the medium (2 to 3 ¼ inches in diameter) and the jumbo (3 to 3 ¾ inches in diameter).
Cooking Tips
Onions are one of the most common cooking ingredients throughout the world. Their texture, color, and zest add intrigue to all types of dishes – from appetizers to condiments to main entrées.
Buying Onions
- When purchasing onions, look for dry outer skins free of spots or blemishes. The onion should be heavy for its size and have no scent. Avoid bulb onions that have begun to sprout.
Storing Onions
- Store your onions in a cool, dry ventilated place – not in the refrigerator.- Do not store whole onions in plastic bags. Lack of air movement reduces storage life.
- Chopped or sliced onions can be stored in a sealed container in your refrigerator for up to 7 days.
Preparing Onions
- High heat makes onions bitter. When sautéing onions, always use low or medium heat.
- Keep in mind that the more consistent the onion pieces, the more evenly they will cook.
Cutting Onions
- Always use a sharp knife when cutting onions. By doing this, less damage will occur to the onion’s cells and less of the tear-producing compounds will be released.
- Remove the outer layer of skin.
- Trim off the top of onion but leave the root end intact.
- Beginning at the root end, cut the onion in half and place both halves flat side down on cutting surface.
- Make several parallel cuts into the onion, just short of the root end. Starting at the root end, cut across the cuts you just made and discard the root end.
Nutrition & Health
Onions not only provide flavor they are also low in calories and offer layers flavor to a wide variety of foods. With only 45 calories per serving, onions are fat and cholesterol free, very low in sodium, high in vitamin C, and a good source of fiber and other key nutrients.They also provide health promoting phytochemicals as well as nutrients. Higher intakes of fruits and vegetables have been associated with a variety of health benefits. Research shows that onions may help guard against many chronic diseases. That's probably because onions contain generous amounts of a flavonoid called quercetin. Other sources are tea and apples, but research shows that absorption of quercetin from onions is twice that from tea and more than three times that from apples. Studies have shown that quercetin protects against cataracts, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.
In addition, onions contain a variety of other naturally occurring chemicals known as organosulfur compounds that have been linked to lowering blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
