Vegetable
Onion
CebollaCebaAllium cepa
It's around all year because, once dried, it keeps for months. But the freshly pulled summer onion is juicy and sweet, and makes you cry a little less. Only a little.
When
Around: all year · At its best: Jul–Sept
Around: all year · At its best: Jul–Sept
Around: all year · At its best: Jan–Mar
Around here
It's the base of sofregit, and there's no escalivada without it. Ceba de Figueres, from the Empordà, is pink, sweet and mild, good raw, and has its own fair in Figueres. The late white Lleida onion is the one calçots grow from. And spring brings the fresh spring onion, for omelettes and broad beans.
At the market
- Dried: heavy, hard when squeezed, with thin, papery skin and a closed, dry neck.
- No green shoots, and no soft or mouldy patches at the base.
- Fresh summer onions have thinner, slightly damp skin: that's normal, but use them sooner.
- For eating raw, red or Figueres; for a long sofregit, the usual white or brown.
At home
- Dried, somewhere cool, dark and airy, in a basket or a net: it keeps for weeks, even months.
- Fresh summer onions and spring onions go in the fridge; use them within a week.
- Cut, in a sealed tub in the fridge, two or three days; otherwise the whole fridge will taste of onion.
- Away from potatoes: together, they spoil sooner.
If you have too much
- A big batch of sofregit or softened onion, frozen in portions: half a supper done.
- Onion caramelised over a very low heat, in a jar in the fridge, for a week or two.
- Pickled: in rings, with vinegar, water, salt and a little sugar; ready in a couple of hours and keeps for weeks in the fridge.
- Chopped raw, it freezes without blanching, for stews (not for salads).
In the kitchen
- Escalivada: roasted whole with pepper and aubergine, then peeled and torn into strips with oil.
- In a salad with tomato, Figueres onion in thin rings.
- Slow sofregit, the base for rice dishes and stews.
- Stuffed and baked, or roasted whole in the embers.
- French onion soup, for when it turns chilly.
- Potato tortilla with onion, if you're on that side.
“With you, bread and onion”: love is enough, even when money is short.
What it brings
Per 100 g, raw.
- Energy
- 40 kcal
- Water
- 89% water
- Carbs
- 9.3 g
- Sugars
- 4.2 g
- Fibre
- 1.7 g
- Protein
- 1.1 g
Stands out for
It isn't a «source» of anything by the EU rules: you eat it because it's good, which is plenty.
Data from the USDA (FoodData Central). See the full table ↗ · How we decide what stands out
In the family recipes
- Pipirrana Grandma's
The recipes are in Spanish.
Goes with
- TomatoJun–OctAn August tomato and a January one only share the colour. And a good tomato's worst enemy isn't winter: it's your fridge.
- PepperJul–OctGreen and red are usually the same pepper at two stages: the red one was left to ripen on the plant. That's why it's sweeter and dearer.
- AubergineJun–OctIt's a sponge: it soaks up all the oil you give it. Charred whole over a flame it becomes something else, creamy and smoky, without a drop extra.
- New potatoMay–AugYou can tell a new potato because the skin rubs off with your thumb. It's the spring and summer one; the all-year potato is something else, and it's been waiting for you in a store for months.