Frozen chopped onions - a time saving essential

The first step in most of the Mediterranean recipes is to add olive oil in a pan, chop the onions and sauté until they caramelize. Chopping the onions when cooking for children means: "finely" chopping. This simple task (peeling and cutting) can take a beginner a long time....not to mention the crying part.

I will tell you what works for me:

To keep in my freezer frozen chopped onions. You can buy them in the freezer section of the grocery store/supermarket OR freeze them yourself if you have the time. Use them in cooked products, such casseroles, soups and stews, ground meat mixtures, etc. Thawing is not needed.

How to do it?

1. Peel, wash and finely chop raw onions. There is no need to blanch them.

2. Bag and freeze in freezer bags for best quality and odor protection.

Finally a few things about onions:

• After you purchase onions, you should store them in a cool, dry, ventilated place, definitely not in your refrigerator. Avoid storing onions in plastic bags during storage; the lack of air movement will reduce their storage life. After onions are chopped or sliced, store them in a sealed container in your refrigerator for up to 7 days, or your freezer for 1-3 months.

• One medium onion yields about 1 cup of chopped onions.

• Use low or medium heat when sautéing onions. High heat will make them bitter.

• Reduce crying when cutting onions by first chilling them for 30 minutes. Leave the root end intact when cutting onions. The root end has the highest concentration of the sulphuric compounds that cause tearing.