How to Chop an Onion Without Crying

Published on Wednesday, January 11, 2012, by CHOW Video Team / Edit Post

Russell Jackson, chef-owner of Lafitte in San Francisco, knows that chopping onions can be a real pain in the eye sometimes. In this CHOW Tip he shares a few ideas that might make your onion prep a bit more bearable. Check out this story from The Kitchn if you don't quite buy the bread-in-the-mouth bit.

CHOW Tips are the shared wisdom of our community. If you’ve figured out some piece of food, drink, or cooking wisdom that you’d like to share on video (and you can be in San Francisco), email Blake Smith and tell us what you’ve got in mind.

ALLCHOW Tip
POST A COMMENT |11 Comments

COMMENT

  • I stick it in the freezer for a few minutes ... never a problem (courtesy Ted Allen and his food myths show on some cable network)

  • i hold one or two wooden matchsticks in my mouth -- unlit, of course, with the head of the match out (meaning not *in* my mouth).

  • This method if for those with a gas stove. Use the burner that is next to your counter top and turn the flame on high. Place your cutting board next to it and start cutting. I heard about this method on a television show a couple of years ago and it has worked very well for me. This past Thanksgiving I had to chop about 6 onions and I barely shed a tear doing it this way.

  • My first job as a cook way back in the 80s - when I was onion chopper in chief - came with a pair of lab goggles, the kind for working around caustic fumes. They worked like they were made for the purpose, ha ha. Nary a tear.

  • I'm w/PedrO . . .I received onion goggles as a gift and they really work.

  • They did this on that old Food Detectives show, and the fridge method was the one that worked the best by far. As a coincidence, that's the one I've always done anyway, as that's where onions live.

  • A pair of tight-fitting safety glasses or ski goggles works too.

  • I have a small fan that I set on the counter while I am cutting onions directing it at the area between the onion and my chin. The fan blows the onion vapors away before they can reach my face. I use it EVERY time i chop onions and i never shed a tear.

  • I'm extremely sensitive to the onion vapors, and found that bread trick years ago while researching how not to cry like a 10 year old child. (Yup, he's about right.) Alas, it didn't work for me, at all. Another tip I read was to have a candle burning near the cutting board. No dice there, either.

    The fridge idea, I think, has merit. I've definitely found that if I use half an onion one day,...+READ

    I'm extremely sensitive to the onion vapors, and found that bread trick years ago while researching how not to cry like a 10 year old child. (Yup, he's about right.) Alas, it didn't work for me, at all. Another tip I read was to have a candle burning near the cutting board. No dice there, either.

    The fridge idea, I think, has merit. I've definitely found that if I use half an onion one day, refrigerate the other half, and cut it the next day, I have no issues on day two. I'm so conditioned to store my onions at room temp that I never thought to test that with a whole onion... will definitely give it a go.-COLLAPSE

  • Talking with you mouth full!? Chow, what are you teaching us.

    I'm a straight dude, but what a hunk!

  • Does the bread trick work? Why would it work?