Onions have a really important place in Slovak cuisine, especially during the holiday season. We can use it as a side dish to practically any meat, sauce or as a frying or baking dish. Just how to cut an onion so it doesn’t make us cry? Read on for 4 ways to cut onions so you don’t cry.

Why do we cry when cutting onions?

  • When you cut an onion, you damage its cells, which causes the enzyme allinase to be released. When it reacts with another component, it then creates a gas that quickly disperses into the air.
  • When it gets into the eyes, it is already in the form of irritating sulfuric acid. At this moment, the mucous membrane starts to produce more and more tears as a defensive reaction.

It is at this moment, while cutting the onion, that we begin to cry. How to cut onions without tears in this case?

Four ways to cut onions so you don’t cry

About the ways of cutting onions it pays to think before we start the actual work.

  • First of all, it is about cooling our vegetables. It is best to put the whole onion in the freezer for 15 minutes. This will ensure that less alinase and eye-irritating gas will be released from it.
  • A similar method in action, only much faster, is immersion of peeled onions in ice water. In both cases, the same effect is achieved. Just remember a simple rule – the colder the water, the better.
  • The third way how to cut an onion so that it doesn’t make us cry, uses physical principles. Simply place a lit candle near the cutting board or turn on the kitchen burner. This will increase the amount of gas that irritates the eyes and our body will not start producing tears as a defensive reaction. Or at least not as much as he usually does.
  • The last method is the least sophisticated, but probably just as effective. It involves cutting onions not with a knife, but vegetable slicer with an airtight lid. This way you will definitely not irritate your eyes and make them cry.

Onions will never rot again. This is my grandfather’s proven method