Knowing your onions (Onions)

Member Name: i_am_joy

Product:	Onions
Date:	19/10/08 (98 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheaper than other onions and seem exactly the same, if a little smaller

Disadvantages: Some of the skins can look grubby and a little bruised

There are very few Sainsbury's Basics products that I like, but the Basics cooking onions are well worth buying. I use quite a few onions in cooking every week, but when I was recently asked to make a large quantity of French Onion Soup I realised it would be expensive to buy all the onions I would need from the grocer and this is how I discovered this bargain in Sainsbury's.

They come in a clear plastic bag and from first glance you'll see these onions are quite small compared to the huge cooking onions you can buy from the grocer. This doesn't really matter however as most recipes call for onions to be chopped or sliced and the only dish I can imagine these will not be suitable for is baked onions, although you could easily bake yourself two of these rather than one big onion.

The only difference I can see between these onions and the more expensive ones is the fact that the skins on these sometimes look grubby and a little bashed about. This does not affect the onions in the slightest and I have yet to come across an onion that is in a bad condition so that I can't use it.

The onions are crisp and moist inside, they slice well and cook beautifully whether I'm including them in a recipe or simply frying or roasting them. They have a rich and tangy onion flavour without being overly bitter. Try frying these onions in butter and adding them to a hot dog, delicious.

They keep surprisingly well too, which I was surprised about as these are so cheap. I store mine in the fridge as it prevents me crying as I slice or chop them and they stay fresh for quite a while. In fact I had some in my fridge when I went to Birmingham for the week recently and when I got back they had not sweated (I take them out of the plastic bag straight away) and were still fresh enough to use despite being almost two weeks old by then.

A 1.5kg bag of these onions costs 73p at the moment, which is significantly cheaper than other onions in Sainsbury's. I think they are a great buy and my French Onion Soup came out beautifully and received many compliments about the richness of the onions.

Summary: 1.5kg of cooking onions for 73p.