Chopping onions is my least favorite part of cooking. I am aware that there are new manual tools available that make it easier to chop onions without even crying or leaving your hands smelling like onions. Still used today, nevertheless, is the traditional approach to slicing onions. This post is intended for everyone who wants to learn how to slice onions without crying.
What Causes You To Cry While Cutting An Onion?
When you chop onions, there is a chemical reaction that occurs and releases a gas called syn-Propanethial-S-oxide. This compound irritates the eyes, triggering the lacrimal glands to produce tears as a defense mechanism.
When you cut an onion, you break its cells, which causes the onions to release enzymes. These enzymes react with other onion compounds to form sulfenic acid. This acid quickly changes into a gas that irritates your eyes, causing them to water. This frustrating mechanism while preparing a meal can be quite bothersome which causes people to seek a tear-free solution.
Tear-free Solution To Chopping Onions
The Chilling Technique: Cold temperatures can slow down the chemical reaction that releases the eye irritating gas from the onions. Thus, the colder the onion, the less likely it is for the eyes to water. You can achieve this by placing the onions in the refrigerator for around 30 minutes before you start chopping them. If that option is not available to you, you can try soaking the onion in water colder than room temperature, a couple of minutes before you start chopping the onion. This particular method I have tried and it has worked really well for me.
Physical Barrier: The aim of this technique is to prevent the eyes from the irritating fumes using a physical barrier. This may sound extreme but hey, we’re strictly looking for what works. I’ve tried chopping onions with eye goggles. The eye goggles are sealed all around so there is no way for the fumes to directly reach the eyes, that’s the physical barrier we’re talking about.
However, this tip doesn’t stop the eyes from getting indirectly irritated because I still inhaled the fumes from my nose, which caused an indirect irritation. So what you want to do is top it off with a surgical or cloth nose mask which filters the air that passes through your nose. Or you can simply try breathing through your mouth, limiting the amount of the fumes that go up your nose.
Another tip for this technique is using a sharp knife. A sharp knife makes cleaner cuts which reduces the amount of irritant released during the entire cutting process. The last tip for this technique is chopping the onion in front of a working fan or a stove which will help disperse the gas away from the face.
Other Tips: Let’s look at other people’s tear-free solutions that might just work for you.
Fuhnetically says: “Desensitize yourself by watching lots of onion chopping videos. You’ll stop seeing the onions as other living things on this planet and more as objects, and it’ll be emotionally easier to rationalize chopping them into little pieces.”
Bridgeless- Troll says: “The closest “hack” I’ve ever tried to prevent tears while cutting onions is to place a lit candle between yourself and the onion. As you cut the onion, the flame from the candle can help burn off the gasses from the onion that cause tearing. It’s not perfect but it can help some. It’s also a little weird reaching around the lit candle to cut the onion. But anyways, hope it helps.”
Tight-Succotash-6083 says: “Mint chewing gum works wonders for me.”
RippedCoated says: “Add olive oil to the knife first before cutting . Just a light coating. Won’t affect the taste.”
Bottom Line
There are a couple of ways to have a tear-free experience of chopping onions. Like wearing eye goggles, wearing a mask, and even desensitizing yourself by watching lots of onion chopping videos (•‿•). There could be other tips out there that could be weird but still work. Let us know in the comments what works for you.
