How to Dice an Onion

I didn't start off cooking the way I do now. I'm constantly learning new techniques, revisiting old attempts to see what works best for me. That being said, I've learned a few shortcuts to speed things up a bit. One of the handiest ones I've found is how to chop an onion.

Onions are all about chemical warfare. Once you pierce the skin, it starts to fight back by assaulting your eyes. There's various remedies out there (sunglasses, fans, dances ect) to help defeat this menace to harvest the delicious flavor of onions. Me personally, I strike fast and get it in the dish as soon as I can.

The delicious enemy, and my weapon of choice!

Now, as you've noticed here, I have removed the skin from the onion, and we're ready to strike. First, I cut this pole to pole, not across the "equator". Then, depending on the portion I want, I cut it down again. If you're using a whole, or multiple onions, cutting them in half is sufficient.

Take THAT!

Now, after I've chosen my chunk of onion, I place vertical cuts through the onion. You don't want to cut front to back completely, just about 3/4 from the edge of the onion. Otherwise the onion will fall apart and you'll be chasing onion parts over your board.

Next, I place my hand on top of the onion to prevent slippage, and slowly move my knife through the center of the onion in a horizontal movement. Move slow and keep your hands away from the blade! You'll want to keep your hand parallel to the blade, don't "cup" the onion! This won't take much force, so go easy the first few times you try this. The same distance is used here, about 3/4 through the onion. Any more than that, and you've made more work for yourself instead of speeding up the process.

Now you can chop down the onion as seen below. This creates a nice fine dice, about 1/4 of an inch cube of onion. You can do the previous steps in finer cuts to make a finer dice if you'd like. The last hunk of the onion that you didn't put slices through can be easily handled by 3-4 chops of your knife. With some practice, you can chop through an entire onion in about 30-45 seconds with ease. Exercise caution, be safe, and soon you'll be virtually tear free!