Onions in Salads: Soak Them in Water First

There’s nothing wrong with a good hunk of onion in a salad: it’s crunchy, and filled with pungent flavor. However, when that strong flavor takes over the dish, not to mention the next few hours of the victim’s mouth, that’s when one starts to push those crisp onion slices off to the side of the plate. But there’s a great way to have your onion and eat it too!

Soaking onions in ice water for 10 or 15 minutes mellows out the flavor to take that sharp edge, and accompanying aftertaste, out of the picture. It’s a trick restaurants use, and you can achieve the same results, too.

Salads Featuring Onion
• Tomato Salad with Red Onion, Dill and Feta
• Roasted Beet Salad with Barley, Feta, and Red Onion
• Citrus and Onion Salad
• Sicilian-Inspired Blood Orange Salad

Related: Raw to Sweet: How to Change the Intensity of Onions

(Images: Emma Christensen)