I like a little purple onion on my sandwiches. I am a single gal living alone. How do I store a cut onion so it stays fresh as long as possible?
Additional info: I live in an apartment with a crap refrigerator that only has two temperatures, “Frozen Milk” and “Unfrozen Ice Cubes”. So, I don’t have much sophistication by way of refrigeration to offer.
Wrap it tightly in saran wrap. Keeps for about three days before it goes nasty.
I wrap mine in a paper towel and stick the whole shebang in a plastic zip-top bag and then in my vegetable drawer, and the damn thing lasts for weeks and weeks. I shave a few slivers off every couple of nights for salads, and one onion lasts a month or more.
Given your fridge’s liking for coolth, I’d try and find the warmest place in the fridge - the veg drawer if you have one. Conversely, find the coldest place in your kitchen, but it won’t last nearly as long at room temperature.
Cut it from the top: once you sever the root end, its shelf life is substantially diminished. I put it face down on a sheet of cling wrap, which I then twist closed under the root. A tupperware thing might work too. When I go to re-use it, I usually discard the first slice.
In any case, it won’t last forever; when it starts to get mushy, toss it.
How long would it last if I sliced it all up at one time?
Right, I also cut from the “blossom” end, leaving the root end intact. In fact, sometimes the thing starts growing again, which is a little creepy.
Sliced all at once I don’t think you could get more than 3 days out of it.
Right-o.
Thanks, guys!
A sandwich-sized ziploc bag is just the right size, and seals up the stinky onion good ‘n’ tight. Yeah, leave the root end intact and it’ll last a long time. If you come back to it later with the intent of using a slice or two of it raw, first slice a thin piece off of the old cut face of the onion and discard it. That bit might have oxidized a bit and taste old and funky. The next slice should be fresh.
I knew an onion would leave its essence on a tupperoid thing forever, so I have a designated onion container. It’s a Rubbermaid 3 cup round Servin’ Saver, and it shows no signs of cracking or warping. It has been the onion thing for several years, now. I use a lot of onion in cooking.
I always cut mine when I bring them home, and dice half/most of it and freeze for later frying, cooking and adding to soups, etc. Freezing will turn any fruit or vegetable mushy, because the expanding water to ice breaks all the cells open. But for recipes, the onion gets soft during cooking anyway.
The refrigerated part is then sliced and diced only when needed, to eat raw on top of salads and hamburgers and hot dogs and chili. My, how this is making me hungry!
I cut from the proper end, as mentioned above. Then I just toss it into a Ziploc bag.
When I take it out, the outer edge sometimes looks a little wilty. I just cut a thin outer slice, and throw that away, and then use the next inner slice for whatever I’m using. The outer edge is sort of a sacrificial food storage aid rather than being a portion I plan to eat later.
I’ve got a special container from Tupperware that’s designed to hold the better part of a cut onion without leaking smells into the rest of the fridge, and keeping it fresh. It looks like a hemisphere with a flat “hook” on it, so you can hang it from the bottom of a fridge shelf for storage out of the way.
Uhh… wow.
I just cut the whole onion up into bits, store in a tupperware container in the fridge, and use it for about a month… they get a little soggy towards the end, but seem okay… I think…
Am I gonna die?
Only of philistinism. 