The chili recipe calls for diced onion and your chopping skills just aren’t up to par. Don’t panic, there is a simple solution to your dicing woes and, quite frankly, you are not alone. A lot of individuals dislike chopping onions, which is completely understandable considering that their shape can be difficult to handle and their distinct aroma can leave you in tears. However, there is an easy method that you can utilize at home that will make the onion dicing process much easier. By following these simple directions provided by the HHS Culinary team, you will be able to dice an onion in seconds, the right way.
As an extra bonus, learn how you can skip the tears when handling onions.
Hold the onion steady with your non-knife hand and trim off the stem end by about a half inch.
Place the onion with the cut-side down. Using your non-knife hand hold the onion steady and slice it in half.
Peel off the remaining skin as well as the pale layer underneath the skin to reveal the more tender portion of the onion.
Lay the onion with the cut-side down and make a series of horizontal slices by holding the top of the onion steady with your knuckles to avoid accidentally cutting your your fingers. Slice almost all the way through, but keep the root end intact so that the layers remain connected.
Still holding the onion with your knuckles, make a series of vertical cuts with the same spacing as your horizontal cuts, again keeping the root end intact.
Finally, dice the onion by making a series of perpendicular cuts to the ones you just made. Again, remember to protect your fingers by using your knuckles of your non-knife hand as a guide for the blade. Continue slicing the onion until just the root remains.