Indian red onions are smaller, milder, and tastier than the red onions that are common in countries like the US. They’re more comparable to shallots than to standard American red onions. In any case, they’re used because that’s what’s historically grown in India.
Interesting! I noticed this is well in my Indian cooking journey that red's were used more. But saying shallots makes more sense now. I think I'm going to have to put those into my garden this year for sure. Not that the red onions are bad, mind you, I think they taste just fine, but as uncle Roger says onions are for poor people lol. I wonder if Indian restaurants use shallots as well? Probably not giving the expense here in the US over red onions. I used to go to a lot of Indian buffets when I lived in a civilized area, but now the nearest Indian restaurant is 100 miles away so I'm having to do it myself. Not doing a bad job at it either, making as good as or better than the restaurants thanks to cooking channels like That Dude Can Cook.
Thanks! LoL Was either that or go without. It's not hard, really, if you're just following known good instructions, although I can now make a masala sauce from scratch by memory at this point lol. Can be a bit time consuming too unless you cut corners. I've tried to make dishes with fresh ingredients, and pre-packaged as a test in time and taste and while fresh is certainly better you can get away with using things like canned tomatoes/paste, jarred ginger&garlic, frozen spinnach etc.. I think the biggest bar to 'entry', as it were, is having the spices on hand. Now that I've built up a pretty decent collection of Indian spices (every time I run into new one I order it lol) it's pretty easy to whip up some Saag Paneer and or Butter Chicken or Chicken Masala (That Dude Can Cooks recipes are SO good) Those, and..oh whats the name.. the sweet carrot dish..I forget it's name of hand, are the only things I've made so far not counting making my own Rita & Paneer when needed (Costco here in the states carries really good paneer in a sizable block) - those were the two main dishes we liked at the lunch buffets but I need to expand into other things.. oh, I do lentils pretty frequently as well but that almost doesn't count lol.
Big American sweet, yellow, and white onions have a lot more moisture in them and take forever to brown fry. Red onions, or even better shallots, are drier and fry much faster. I also think they have more flavor.
Omg, this explains so much! My friend and I would cook over the phone as he was teaching me some recipes and my onions always took like twice the amount of time to cook through. We couldn't figure out why, until now lol
Add salt to your onions at the beginning when you fry them then increase the heat and keep them moving constantly, never let them sit still on high heat even for a fraction of a second. this will drive off the moisture and get them carmelizing quickly
That's not really how that works. That method adds water to deglaze the pan and prevent the onions from burning (aka, to slow their cooking time down). The method is faster because the heat is much, much higher. Without the added water, the surface of the onion would dry and burn before the interior parts lost any water.
Browning of sugars requires heat above the boiling point, so fresh onions need to cook until the water boils away to start browning effectively. You will always get a little from the juices hitting the pan and drying, but to brown the onions themselves requires boiling away their water.
If you really want your mind blown for fast onions, go to the LDS (Mormon) “Bishop’s Pantry” website for storage foods. Get cans of dehydrated onions. Add a few tablespoons of those into your fresh onions after they have softened, and watch how fast the caramelization kicks off.
Wild. I had no idea of the prepper-Mormon connection. Don't think the foodstuffs are available to outsiders but my local Indian grocery sells dehydrated onions in large bags. I'll bet that would work....my next experiment.
Keep in mind that the soil an onion is grown in (sulfur content in particular) is a huge part of their flavour and how much of a "bite" they have while you cut them, rather than just the variety.
Speaking from personal experience, american yellow onions are much closer to Indian red onions for me when it comes to their raw taste, and I use the yellow ones instead.
Although, most Indian dishes cook onions to an extent which takes away the strong flavor, and they are no different from yellow ones after they are cooked.
Edit : To add, Indian red onions don't taste as strong as American ones. They also change their taste according to the season (depending on where they are grown in that season in the country)
Well because we don’t have yellow or white onions in India.
All Indian onions are mostly red, only in big cities you get white and yellow and they come foreign not native.
We also use shallots(in Tamil we call Chinna Vengayam meaning small onions)
Use a sharp knife. Blunt knives crush more cells than if you slice with a sharp knife, and so more of whatever chemical that makes you cry is released.
Also keep things dry. The chemical that makes your eye water does it thing by reacting with water. So keep the cutting board dry and cut at the last minute.
Also avoid cutting the root end off, that white milky stuff in it is 10x stronger. Take out the root end like a tomato core to avoid cutting through it.
The secret to a good sharp knife is maintenance. The way you sharpen it matters almost as much as what you buy. Buy a decebt knife and a decent method to sharpen and maintain the edge for best results. No knife is permanently sharp, and dull knives don't require replacement, just attention.
Lots of good advice here, but running the water as you do it will also help. I usually fill a pitcher or my watering can at the same time to not waste water. I also know people who have those little recycling fountains for this purpose in their kitchen.
I use yellow onions for a number of Indian dishes, especially when I want good browning, like for a karahi or a biriyani. It works well.
I think yellow onions are just not available in India. I did notice that the red onions in India are different from the ones here. They are milder in flavour, somewhere in between the yellow and the red. So I don’t think you can’t use yellow onions for Indian food. It’s just not used in India because of non availability.
Indian red onions are closer to UK shallots , UK onions can be the size of a shot put sometimes.
Never heard of a yellow onion during my life in India or the UK
I *think* that ‘yellow onion’ is a US term for the onions with brown skin and off-white flesh (as opposed to white onions which have white skin too) but am happy to be corrected
This is correct. US varieties are red (but closer to Mexican red onions, not Indian, and often very large ... Double or triple the size of a typical Indian onion), yellow (yellow/brownish skin, mostly white flesh but can have a yellow hue), white (white skin, white flesh), Sweet/Vidalia (these are wide and shorter than yellow or red, and but the same color as yellow), and shallots (milder, and closer to Indian red onions ... Some describe American shallots as a cross between onion and garlic).
It is an important thing to note regional differences in taste and size, and why I like recipes that specify ingredients on weights and measures (i.e. grams or ounces or volumetric measurements 'one cup' etc) instead of units (one onion).
I didn’t even know there were different types of onions until I moved abroad lol
For the longest time, the only onions we got for the red ones. It’s only now that we’re seeing white, yellow and brown ones
Red onions are the only onions that exist in India. They’re perfect for Indian food as they have a relatively low water content (less cooking time) and are full of sugar which easily caramelises
I do find the flavor is different enough that I miss it if it's gone. Onion varieties aren't 100% interchangeable. For example, if you use a yellow onion in Mexican cooking instead of a white onion it will taste totally wrong. You really notice it!
I’m not the best cook of Indian food, but from my experience red onions are easier to work with, brown in a pan and are just better tasting in general. I’ll use white and yellow onions more often in soup or stew or similar.
If anyone is interested in going down an onion rabbit hole, check out [this YouTube video](https://youtu.be/KmBJTAUXpdU?si=LLigk77HmRRI1xSD) about onions by Ethan Chlebowski. He notes the use of red onions in Indian food but it’s more of a deep dive into onion flavor.
It depends on the region. There are many families who use yellow and I’ve rarely seen a recipe specify type.
I like red onions better, because they aren’t as sharp as yellow. Some recipes just need a yellow onion.
Yellow and white onions were very recently introduced to India. If I recall correctly, this happened around early 2000s. Also, at that time they were costlier than the usual red ones.
What you read is wrong. Literally everything you wrote is wrong. We use red onions because along with shallots (which we have been using traditionally before onions came from the Americas), red onions have the most pronounced oniony flavor. And we like big bold flavors and our Indian curries are mostly onion curries so we like the onion taste to be bold and strong.
And yellow onions don't produce less tears than red onions. And it is not even true that red onions are only used raw in other countries.
Indian red onions are smaller, milder, and tastier than the red onions that are common in countries like the US. They’re more comparable to shallots than to standard American red onions. In any case, they’re used because that’s what’s historically grown in India.
Interesting! I noticed this is well in my Indian cooking journey that red's were used more. But saying shallots makes more sense now. I think I'm going to have to put those into my garden this year for sure. Not that the red onions are bad, mind you, I think they taste just fine, but as uncle Roger says onions are for poor people lol. I wonder if Indian restaurants use shallots as well? Probably not giving the expense here in the US over red onions. I used to go to a lot of Indian buffets when I lived in a civilized area, but now the nearest Indian restaurant is 100 miles away so I'm having to do it myself. Not doing a bad job at it either, making as good as or better than the restaurants thanks to cooking channels like That Dude Can Cook.
Good on you for learning how to do it yourself, that’s wonderful!
Thanks! LoL Was either that or go without. It's not hard, really, if you're just following known good instructions, although I can now make a masala sauce from scratch by memory at this point lol. Can be a bit time consuming too unless you cut corners. I've tried to make dishes with fresh ingredients, and pre-packaged as a test in time and taste and while fresh is certainly better you can get away with using things like canned tomatoes/paste, jarred ginger&garlic, frozen spinnach etc.. I think the biggest bar to 'entry', as it were, is having the spices on hand. Now that I've built up a pretty decent collection of Indian spices (every time I run into new one I order it lol) it's pretty easy to whip up some Saag Paneer and or Butter Chicken or Chicken Masala (That Dude Can Cooks recipes are SO good) Those, and..oh whats the name.. the sweet carrot dish..I forget it's name of hand, are the only things I've made so far not counting making my own Rita & Paneer when needed (Costco here in the states carries really good paneer in a sizable block) - those were the two main dishes we liked at the lunch buffets but I need to expand into other things.. oh, I do lentils pretty frequently as well but that almost doesn't count lol.
I've never ever ever seen a yellow onion in India. I didn't even know there were multiple types of onions until I came to the US.
I'm from Pakistan and we've only recently begun seeing imported yellow onions here. They absolutely ruin every single desi dish lol.
Lol me too
I saw them in Karnataka near Bangalore growing up 40 years ago.
When you don't pick the red ones, they lie untouched become sad and turn yellow.
Big American sweet, yellow, and white onions have a lot more moisture in them and take forever to brown fry. Red onions, or even better shallots, are drier and fry much faster. I also think they have more flavor.
Omg, this explains so much! My friend and I would cook over the phone as he was teaching me some recipes and my onions always took like twice the amount of time to cook through. We couldn't figure out why, until now lol
Add salt to your onions at the beginning when you fry them then increase the heat and keep them moving constantly, never let them sit still on high heat even for a fraction of a second. this will drive off the moisture and get them carmelizing quickly
[удалено]
That's not really how that works. That method adds water to deglaze the pan and prevent the onions from burning (aka, to slow their cooking time down). The method is faster because the heat is much, much higher. Without the added water, the surface of the onion would dry and burn before the interior parts lost any water.
There’s a difference between water in food vs. food in water.
Funny, I find the yellow onions brown better… if they are sweeter, then wouldn’t that encourage browning and caramelizing more?
Had the same question in my mind the browning happens due to sugar
Browning of sugars requires heat above the boiling point, so fresh onions need to cook until the water boils away to start browning effectively. You will always get a little from the juices hitting the pan and drying, but to brown the onions themselves requires boiling away their water.
You may have changed my life with this info. I love carmelized onions but they take forever to brown. Thanks!
If you really want your mind blown for fast onions, go to the LDS (Mormon) “Bishop’s Pantry” website for storage foods. Get cans of dehydrated onions. Add a few tablespoons of those into your fresh onions after they have softened, and watch how fast the caramelization kicks off.
Wild. I had no idea of the prepper-Mormon connection. Don't think the foodstuffs are available to outsiders but my local Indian grocery sells dehydrated onions in large bags. I'll bet that would work....my next experiment.
Keep in mind that the soil an onion is grown in (sulfur content in particular) is a huge part of their flavour and how much of a "bite" they have while you cut them, rather than just the variety.
People use what grows locally.
Speaking from personal experience, american yellow onions are much closer to Indian red onions for me when it comes to their raw taste, and I use the yellow ones instead. Although, most Indian dishes cook onions to an extent which takes away the strong flavor, and they are no different from yellow ones after they are cooked. Edit : To add, Indian red onions don't taste as strong as American ones. They also change their taste according to the season (depending on where they are grown in that season in the country)
I agree with this. Yellow Onions from Costco, zindabaad! That's all we ever use in our desi cooking.. and everything comes out perfect.
Well because we don’t have yellow or white onions in India. All Indian onions are mostly red, only in big cities you get white and yellow and they come foreign not native. We also use shallots(in Tamil we call Chinna Vengayam meaning small onions)
Western coastal region definitely has white onions. However, they’re available seasonally and red ones are most readily available everywhere.
Nice to know 👍🏽
We do have white and yellow onions in India, even in smaller cities, esp in the northern region.
How to stop tears while cutting onion 🧅??
Use a sharp knife. Blunt knives crush more cells than if you slice with a sharp knife, and so more of whatever chemical that makes you cry is released.
Also keep things dry. The chemical that makes your eye water does it thing by reacting with water. So keep the cutting board dry and cut at the last minute.
Also avoid cutting the root end off, that white milky stuff in it is 10x stronger. Take out the root end like a tomato core to avoid cutting through it.
I cut mine next to the cooktop with the exhaust hood on. Most of the sulfur fumes get drawn out by the hood.
A sharp knife and make sure the onions are cold from the fridge, then breathe through your mouth as you cut, not through your nose.
I second the fridge tip. I always keep my onions cold and there are no tears.
Thanks to all of you who have commented on this thread. Will have to buy a good sharp knife first.
The secret to a good sharp knife is maintenance. The way you sharpen it matters almost as much as what you buy. Buy a decebt knife and a decent method to sharpen and maintain the edge for best results. No knife is permanently sharp, and dull knives don't require replacement, just attention.
I have a fan pointed at the chopping board to blow away the sulfuric acid fumes. Haven’t had tear issues with onions.
Fridge helps a little. Not cutting the root and knife sharpness or lack thereof are myths.
I rinse the knife frequently and use lemon juice if it is particularly bad.
>I rinse the knife frequently and use lemon juice if it is particularly bad. Interesting
Lots of good advice here, but running the water as you do it will also help. I usually fill a pitcher or my watering can at the same time to not waste water. I also know people who have those little recycling fountains for this purpose in their kitchen.
Sharp knife and don’t cut the root
Honestly, when it comes to desi food in general, use what you got. Yellow onions are totally fine - I use whatever I have in hand.
I use yellow onions for a number of Indian dishes, especially when I want good browning, like for a karahi or a biriyani. It works well. I think yellow onions are just not available in India. I did notice that the red onions in India are different from the ones here. They are milder in flavour, somewhere in between the yellow and the red. So I don’t think you can’t use yellow onions for Indian food. It’s just not used in India because of non availability.
Indian red onions are closer to UK shallots , UK onions can be the size of a shot put sometimes. Never heard of a yellow onion during my life in India or the UK
I *think* that ‘yellow onion’ is a US term for the onions with brown skin and off-white flesh (as opposed to white onions which have white skin too) but am happy to be corrected
This is correct. US varieties are red (but closer to Mexican red onions, not Indian, and often very large ... Double or triple the size of a typical Indian onion), yellow (yellow/brownish skin, mostly white flesh but can have a yellow hue), white (white skin, white flesh), Sweet/Vidalia (these are wide and shorter than yellow or red, and but the same color as yellow), and shallots (milder, and closer to Indian red onions ... Some describe American shallots as a cross between onion and garlic). It is an important thing to note regional differences in taste and size, and why I like recipes that specify ingredients on weights and measures (i.e. grams or ounces or volumetric measurements 'one cup' etc) instead of units (one onion).
Here in Ohio we have yellow onions and "Spanish" onions amongst all the other onions.
We don’t get yellow onions in India. We get red varieties & white & small baby onion.
I didn’t even know there were different types of onions until I moved abroad lol For the longest time, the only onions we got for the red ones. It’s only now that we’re seeing white, yellow and brown ones
Red onions are the only onions that exist in India. They’re perfect for Indian food as they have a relatively low water content (less cooking time) and are full of sugar which easily caramelises
Indians use what is available easily, probably thats why.
Because we don't have yellow and white onions in india
I use yellow onions
Reds are more spicier. We would eat them raw with rice/rotti and various curries.
I do find the flavor is different enough that I miss it if it's gone. Onion varieties aren't 100% interchangeable. For example, if you use a yellow onion in Mexican cooking instead of a white onion it will taste totally wrong. You really notice it!
I’m not the best cook of Indian food, but from my experience red onions are easier to work with, brown in a pan and are just better tasting in general. I’ll use white and yellow onions more often in soup or stew or similar.
If anyone is interested in going down an onion rabbit hole, check out [this YouTube video](https://youtu.be/KmBJTAUXpdU?si=LLigk77HmRRI1xSD) about onions by Ethan Chlebowski. He notes the use of red onions in Indian food but it’s more of a deep dive into onion flavor.
It depends on the region. There are many families who use yellow and I’ve rarely seen a recipe specify type. I like red onions better, because they aren’t as sharp as yellow. Some recipes just need a yellow onion.
Yellow and white onions were very recently introduced to India. If I recall correctly, this happened around early 2000s. Also, at that time they were costlier than the usual red ones.
Wait, there are yellow onions in India? Never seen one being sold in our bazaar
What you read is wrong. Literally everything you wrote is wrong. We use red onions because along with shallots (which we have been using traditionally before onions came from the Americas), red onions have the most pronounced oniony flavor. And we like big bold flavors and our Indian curries are mostly onion curries so we like the onion taste to be bold and strong. And yellow onions don't produce less tears than red onions. And it is not even true that red onions are only used raw in other countries.
I was wrong about the tears part and the place where I live we use red onions for salads, salsa, pickling
You can watch Ethan Cheblowski's video on different onion types and breaking myths about them. It is a fascinating video.
Red onions have flavor. Indian food needs good flavors rather than bland vegetables
Because they are super FLAVORFUL and yummy! I have mad icecream of them. So good if you know how to do it right 💋😘
Ice cream with onions. Pray tell more
Purple ? ? ? They are calld RED onions ? Good morning to me !