03-07-2025
How To Properly Slice An Onion—Viral TikTok
During the COVID-19 lockdown, I worked at the Hollywood Food Coalition, a nonprofit organization that serves as both a food kitchen and a food rescue service. Because all the food is donated to the kitchen, you really don't know what you are going to get day-to-day. Sometimes, the work is easy. Produce like tomatoes and strawberries can be sliced and diced with ease.
My favorite fruit to cut is a watermelon. They may look daunting because they are so big, but they are fun to peel and extremely easy to cube.
But there are other ingredients that still give me nightmares. Try peeling and dicing 60 butternut squash in a row. It's hell. Even worse is processing hundreds of pounds of jicama — a large Mexican turnip that's as hard as a rock and will make your hands bleed.
By far, the worst fruit or vegetable to cut? Onions, and it's for the exact reason you think it is. Sure, cutting one onion at home shouldn't be too much of a problem. But have you ever experienced an Onion Day, where you and your coworkers spend an hour dicing 50-pound bags of onions for the head chef? Five minutes in, and the pain is unbearable.
It doesn't matter how fast your knife skills are. It doesn't matter if you try all the 'hacks' like chilling the onions before cutting them or putting a piece of bread in your mouth. When you're working with this kind of volume, they're gonna get ya. Unless, of course, you invest in some high-quality goggles.
One important thing to remember: I am not a professional. At all. I didn't go to culinary school and was just thrown into a commercial kitchen and picked up little tips along the way. Recently, I came across this viral TikTok of Chef Grant Sato cutting onions that absolutely floored me and made me wish I had seen something like it years ago.
The standard julienne cut creates 1/8-inch slices that are approximately two inches long. Seems simple, right? Well, Chef Sato really breaks it down in a way that helps understand not only this technique but also many more tips and tricks needed for onion preparation of any kind.
He begins by cutting off both the root end and the tunic end of the onion. He then cuts the onion in half and removes the dry skin layers.
He also keeps all the skins and ends in a bag; these can be used later to make onion powder, soup stock, dyes, and they make excellent compost.
Now, Chef Sato really peels back the proverbial layers of proper onion preparation. Looking at a peeled onion, you can see fiber lines that run along the outside.
For julienne onions, it's vital that you cut the same way the fiber lines go and not across them. This serves two essential purposes.
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First, cutting against the fibers breaks more of the cells in the onion, releasing a lot of its internal juices that hold all that good flavor. So, when you go to cook them, they not only lose that flavor, but also their texture is destroyed. Or, as Chef Sato describes it, they turn to 'mush.'
And when you're trying to caramelize onions, the last thing you want is mush.
Here's where he gives the perfect onion-cutting tip: For cooking onions, always cut along the fiber. For raw onions, always cut against the fiber. It's a simple rule to remember and will always result in the best flavor and texture.
The second purpose for cutting along the fibers would have helped me a lot on Onion Day. When you cut an onion along its fibers and break fewer cells, you are decreasing your chances of irritating your eyes.
Cutting an onion creates a sulfurous compound from enzymes and amino acids stored in its cells. This compound immediately gets into the air and irritates the glands in your eyes, which produce tears. Think of it like a stink bug's scent or a squid's ink; it's a natural defense mechanism to stop animals from eating it. And we humans are one of those animals.
Chef Sato goes further with the julienne technique. He suggests squaring off the onion halves to create uniformity in each cut.
Doing it this way allows you to julienne the ends evenly so that they match the middle section cuts.
After watching this TikTok, I cried. These were not onion tears but tears of joy, knowing that the next time onions are on the menu, I won't look like I just watched the ending of the movie My Girl. Thank you, Chef Sato.
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