Can you actually taste a difference between Onions?

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⏱ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Intro
2:44 How are Onions grown?
7:06 What are the different varieties of onions?
10:45 What is the Flavor of Onions?
Test 1: What do raw onions taste like?
22:08 Pico de Gallo Test: White vs Yellow Onion
25:32 Italian Hoagie Test: Red vs Sweet Onion
29:00 How to use raw onions
29:57 What do sauteed onions taste like?
34:00 Refried Beans Test: White vs Red Onion
36:02 Chopped Cheese Test: Shallot vs Onion Chopped Cheese
39:26 What are 'caramelized' onions?
40:37 How long does it take to caramelize onions?
42:30 Is it possible to caramelize onions in 10 minutes?
45:59 What is the best onion to keep at home?

Correction: 13:22 Shallot water content should be listed as 79.8%

MISC. DETAILS
Music: Provided by Epidemic Sound
Filmed on: Sony a6600 & Sony A7C
Voice recorded on Shure MV7
Edited in: Premiere Pro

Affiliate Disclosure:

[EthanChlebowski]

Let me know what onion tests you want to do at home!


Video Notes & Corrections:
1. 13:30 - Shallot water content should be 79.8%

[The_Chef]

Pearl onions are harvested after ninety days of growth and don't reach full maturity. Its the same with cipollini onions but pearl onions are either white or red onions while cipollini onions are typically sweet onions. They all are unique cultivars of their respective onions but the main purpose of these onions are to be grown quickly and then stored or preserved. Pickled pearl onions are great.

[TimCluyts]

Ethan, please do a butter deep dive. In Belgian cuisine everything is baked with butter rather than (olive) oil. We use a LOT of butter so I really want to know if it's worth buying more expensive brands or not

[macsarcule]

I’m an Iowa State Master gardener. I grow onions from seed, not sets (just a personal choice), and they’re harvested that year. Onions only need a full biennial cycle to produce seeds, but 2 years are not necessary to produce the onions we eat.

Also, there’s a HUGE world of onions you can grow yourself beyond what we can buy in a store. 🙂

[sean.durham]

A nearly hour long video all about onions. This is the kind of hyper focused content I love on YouTube. 😊

[scottmansfield]

Gardener here who has grown a lot of onions. To answer question Pearl Onions, Cipollinis, and Baby Onions are different things. Pearl onions are, almost always, a different species from your regular onion. Sometimes baby onions are labeled pearl onions but this is not true. Pearl Onions have the scientific classification name Allium Ampeloprasum and a "regular onion" have the name Allium Cepa. Pearl onions do not grow much bigger if grown into the second season. They at least do not grow to the size of a regular onion. Cipollinis are a specific variety of onion. Baby Onions are just normal onions. All three onions are harvested right after the first season so the right answer is A.

[mducraft]

The thing is. In Mexico we use white onions because that is the only onion we can buy, or is the cgeapest one. But I have never seen anyone complain or say its not mexican if it doesn't have white onion. Only Americans complain about such a thing.

[ViCTRiA]

be honest, how much did you cry during the making of this video?

[unoriginal]

One thing to note about onions is that while home gardeners often use sets to grow onions, farms go from seed to full bulb in one season. This takes longer but produces bigger onions without the risk of them becoming woody (onions flower in the second year, so sometimes a set will produce flowers, and if this occurs, the onion becomes woody.) So likely for those smaller onion cultivars you talked about they are either planted at greater density and/or harvested earlier, but certainly within one season as it is only really home gardeners who grow onions over two seasons.

[thegamingpigeon]

Me, ignorant, before this video started- "I'm gonna learn so much, I love this!"

Me at the end of the video- *"Bro, what is going on in Libya?"*

[donzadonz]

As an Indian who recently moved to America, I have found that shallots are much closer in flavor to the red onions that we get in India than the red onions that you get here.

[Kerosene.Dreams]

I want to see you do this with the different types of potatoes, Mister. We all eat them and it may take more than one video for them but I believe it's needed. They are as humble as the onion and yet used pretty constantly, especially as a budget friendly food that packs a mix of nutrients and comfort.

[kmmmm]

Was not expecting to be suddenly swept away in an hour long deep dive of onions 10/10

[Shaosprojects]

I kind of enjoy the irony that these plants developed sulfur compounds to deter them from being eaten so that they can survive - and then humans came around and thought they tasted delicious and decided to propagate them. They became evolutionarily successful by doing the exact opposite of what they intended.

[JBrockwellucf]

Can't believe I watched a 48 minutes of onions but still found it informational and entertaining, well done!

[hermanoben]

You’re among the very best educators on YouTube, Ethan. Thanks for all your hard work.

[richardbernard]

The video is an outstanding detailed analysis of the Allium family.
I got a lot out of this and have never seen anyone else, take this subject apart like you did.
Bravo, you have matured and come a long way since you left the east coast.

[rayray]

As a Libyan I can confirm we eat a hell of a lot of onions. Basically 90% of Libyan dishes (at least the ones I cook) starts with onions garlic and tomato. We even have a dish called "onion" in Arabic or 'Busla'. It's like a tomatoey, onion-based sauce you can put on rice or pasta and it's DELICIOUS.

Basically everything is a variation of the same onion sauce with maybe different spices lol. Anything you can think of (beans, fish, okra, meat, other veggies, etc.) is cooked in an onion and tomato-based sauce.

[womplad]

You put 90.1% instead of 80 for the shallot at 13:27

[richardguerrero]

In Mexican cooking for refried the preferred allium is garlic and not just fried but carbonized in oil before adding the beans.