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How to Cut an Onion, Cutting an Onion - How to Dice an Onion, How to Dice Onions

1,722 views · Published 26 August 2012 · 4:50 · Indexed 8 November 2026

Channel: Jan Charles · 2012 · Howto & Style

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  How to Cut an Onion, Cutting an Onion - How to Dice an Onion, How to Dice Onions
So many times success in the kitchen comes down to a few basic techniques. You don't have to have wicked knife skills to make your food fabulous, but knowing how to handle a few things very well is critical. So many recipes call for onion that knowing how to cut an onion is probably the single most basic skill in the kitchen - and like many things there're right and wrong ways to do it. Check out this video on how to cut an onion - you'll see that learning to do it the right way isn't hard at all. It takes a little knowledge and a bit of practice - that's it! So if you wonder 'how do you cut an onion' - your answer is right here. Check it out!
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Jan: I've been doing a lot more teaching lately, and I've been trying to cater my videos around what people are asking for, and I'm surprised sometimes it's some of the basic skills that we missed. That's one of the reasons why I'm sitting here with this video. Let me show you the right way to chop an onion, and I did not do this correctly until the past couple of years. 
I grew up with the style where you're out in the country and you have a single paring knife and you did everything this way. That's really not the way to do it. This is how I teach my kids to do it, and once you get used to it, it's lightning fast and it's the best way. You've got the root end and you've got the stem end of the onion, do you see that? Now, of course, they're round and you've got to make sure you've got a steady surface, and you want to make sure you have a nice sharp knife. Don't go holding your knife out here like this, by the way. You're going to have more control if you can grip it right here. Keep in your fingers, kind of like this, because you want your knife at an angle. That way if you do slip, you're slipping away from where you're cutting and you won't end up on your hands. Holding at an angle, you're simply going to cut that stem end off. Don't throw it out. I'm going to show you some tricks in the next couple of videos. Then we come in and cut at a half. 
Now, different kinds of onions are going to be easier or more difficult to peel, depending on what they are. This is a plain yellow onion, and these are usually a little easier to peel than the white ones or the red onions. For some reason I can never get that outer paper off of a red onion. You can actually use all three kinds of onions, pretty much interchangeably. Not sweet onions but the yellow onion, which is also called a Spanish onion. You can use white onions, you can use red onions. Now red onions, I like red onions raw on a lot of things, and they will also, if you use them raw, they'll bleed some color. See there's the skin not coming off. They'll bleed some color into your dish, but the taste is really, really nice. All right, then. No, I wasn't done. All right, so you've got your half of an onion, and you've still got the root end attached? That's going to keep everything together. 
The first thing you want to do, and keep your palm up. Always be aware, especially when you're first learning how to do this and you're practicing. Be aware of where your knife is and where your fingers are, and I tell people "Slow down." If you never get fast, it does not matter, but it does matter if you keep all the fingers on your hand. I like to keep my hand up, curved at an angle, and you're going to come in and not quite go all the way to this root end. Just like that. Pull the knife blade out, and then coming this way, we're going to make little cuts. You can make those as far apart as you want, or as close together, depending on what the final size you want your chopped pieces to be. This is simply a dice. This is going to go in a raw salad. Next move, and keeping your fingers back, being aware of where it is, you slice down this way, in nice little even cuts, and do you see what happens? You have perfect little, evenly sized bits of onion. Now, practice doing that the right way, and you will be really surprised how quickly it becomes second nature, and you can produce absolutely perfect cuts every single time. 
If you like this video and you want more great tips, tricks, and techniques, check out the website at ThrillbillyGourmet.com. You can like me on Facebook, under The Thrillbilly Gourmet, and you can follow me on Twitter under Jan Charles or the Thrillbilly. I'm on Pinterest now, too, under Jan Charles. I've also got two, brand new podcasts, both of which you can find on iTunes, The Thrillbilly Gourmet and The Food City Kitchen on WVLT, with Chef Walter Lambert and Jan Charles. Now, make sure you subscribe, and you can ask a question, you can leave a comment, and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks for visiting.

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