Pickled Onions
Small onions in spiced malt vinegar, sharp enough to make your eyes water. Six weeks in the jar, in the fridge, before they are ready.
Photograph credit: Day 177 - Chili Pickled Onions by Phil and Pam · CC BY 2.0 · Flickr
Photograph credit: Rolled Smoked Lamb with shaved pickled onion and watercress by avlxyz · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Flickr · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
The Method for Pickled Onions
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Cover the unpeeled onions with boiling water for 30 seconds, drain, and the skins will slip off easily. Trim the roots as little as possible.
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Layer the peeled onions in a bowl with the salt, cover, and leave 12 hours.
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Meanwhile, bring the vinegar, sugar and all the spices to a simmer for 10 minutes, then take it off the heat and leave it to go completely cold.
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Rinse the onions thoroughly under cold water and dry them well on a cloth.
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Pack them tightly into sterilised jars with a bay leaf and a chilli in each.
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Pour the cold spiced vinegar over, including the spices, until the onions are completely covered.
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Seal and leave six weeks in the fridge before opening.
Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.
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Things to Watch For
- Dry salt, never a wet brine. Wet brine gives soft onions.
- Cold vinegar over. Hot vinegar makes them slippery.
- Six weeks minimum. They are harsh before that.
Good to Know About Pickled Onions
Brine dry, in salt, overnight — not in a wet brine. Salt on its own pulls water out of the onion by osmosis and leaves the layers firm, while a wet brine soaks water back in and gives you soft pickled onions, which are a waste of six weeks. The vinegar must be cold when it goes over: hot vinegar cooks the outer layers and they go slippery. Peel them under water or in a bowl of iced water if you would rather not weep through the whole job.
To Go With It
A ploughman's · Fish and chips · A pint
Storing Leftovers
Sealed in the fridge for 12 months, and in the fridge after opening. Raw onions in cold vinegar are not heat-processed, and jars for the cupboard need a tested recipe and processing in a boiling-water canner.
Quick Answers
How long does Pickled Onions take to make?
30 minutes of preparation and 10 minutes of cooking, plus 6 weeks of dry-brining the onions and maturing the jars for six weeks, so allow 6 weeks from start to finish. The recipe serves 12.
Pickled Onions Nutrition Facts
Per serving, an approximate calculation from the ingredient list. Treat it as a rough guide: where a line offers a choice of foods, only one of them is counted. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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