How To Properly Cut An Onion

       One thing I notice whenever I cook with friends and family is that some people really seem to have a heck of a time cutting onions. It takes people forever.  Let's be honest, you want to get it over with as soon as possible.  I'll admit, I learned my technique from Food Network's, Anne Burrell, on her show Secrets of a Restaurant Chef.  If I ever get to see her in person, she is going to have to endure a giant, smothering hug from me, because she has saved me so much time and has probably also saved my fingers.  This is the fastest, safest way to cut an onion that I have seen.

       To start, look at your onion.  On one end, there is a mass of roots, and on the other end there is a point of onion peel.

Your first cut, should be cutting of the peel end, just slightly behind this point of onion peel and almost completely through all of the layers of peel, but not quite.  You want to be able to use that cut to help you peel the onion, by grabbing that cut mass of dry peel and peeling it toward the root ball.

You may be able to get all of the peel off this way, but another easy option it to cut the onion in half from end to end (from the tip of the dry peel to the end with the root mass).  Then you should be able to peel the onion very easily from each half.  It is extremely important to halve the onion, so that it doesn't roll around in the following steps, which would be a dangerous way to cut.

After peeled and cut in half,  make even cuts of whatever thickness you need going almost all the way to that root mass.  You want to avoid going all the way through, because that root mass is holding your pieces together to make it easier to cut in the opposite direction, which is the next step.

Once you have your even cuts to the root ball, make cuts of the same thickness going in the opposite direction, giving you diced pieces of onion.  Even if you don't need diced onion, you can still start off by making cuts toward your root mass and then cut off the root mass to dislodge your slices.  I find that using that method to help hold all of the onion slices in place is safer for me than dealing with onion layers that keep slipping around.  Or if you want thinner onion slices, you could skip making the cuts toward the root mass and make thin slices in the perpendicular direction that I use for the final dicing step.

I usually store my onions in a dark pantry, away from other food so that my other food doesn't absorb the onion flavor.  My final tip is to place the onion in the refrigerator or freezer for a bit before you plan to cut your onion, especially if you will be cutting multiple onions.  This can really help with the intensity of the onion fumes, so you won't tear up as badly.  Happy chopping!