From the white bulbs to the tattered green ends, here’s how to make the most of your bundle of joy
Buying a bunch of spring onions (sometimes known as shallots – more on that later) can often feel like a race against time. The bunches are big, yet recipes sometimes only call for a sprig or two.
If you’ve ever wondered why spring onions come in such large bundles, the answer has to do with two things: the ideal size of a spring onion and the size of an adult’s hand.
A thin spring onion is a young specimen and it is sweet and fragrant with very little spice. In contrast, a thick spring onion is older with little fragrance, but it is very spicy.
According to Thanh Truong, a Melbourne fruiterer also known online as Fruit Nerd, growers have worked out that the onions hit the Goldilocks point – sweet, fragrant, spicy – when they’re 8mm in diameter. “Too small and it’s like a chive, and too big and it’s halfway to being a leek,” says Truong.
To reach this ideal diameter spring onions are planted so there’s just enough room between them to grow to 8mm.
But what about the bountiful bunches? Spring onions are harvested by hand, and the bunch you see at the markets and on supermarket shelves is the result of one hand’s worth of spring onions being pulled from the earth and bound with a rubber band.
Step one: store them correctly
To maximise the shelf life of spring onions, Alex Elliott-Howery, co-author of the Food-Saver’s A-Z, recommends wrapping them in a clean tea towel and placing them in an airtight container, calico bag or reusable plastic bag before they go in the fridge.
“If in a few days you see one that’s starting to get a bit slimy, remove it,” she says. “The slime will spread to the rest of the shallots.”
Step two: make more than one meal
“Don’t just buy a bunch because one recipe says to garnish with them,” Elliott-Howery says. “You kind of need to go, ‘All right. What else are we going to have that week?’” She will typically plan at least three meals that need spring onions, whether that’s steamed fish, omelettes or spring-onion pancakes.
For the chef, writer and cooking school instructor Tony Tan, living the spring-onion life means knowing exactly what to do with each part of the vegetable.
“The tips of spring onions can look a bit ratty, and I use those to make either chicken stock or stock with pork bones,” he says. “The green parts I usually use for garnishing or stir-frying.”
Tan says spring onion, ginger and garlic are the holy trinity of Chinese cooking. The white part of the spring onion is often used with ginger and garlic as the base to stir-fries; depending on when you add the spring onions, you’ll get a different flavour. For a smoky sweetness, Tan scorches them in the wok at the start of a stir-fry. But for a more vegetal-tasting spring onion, he’ll only add them at the end.
He also uses the white part of the spring onion as a substitute for onions. This makes perfect sense, especially when you consider that in Cantonese, spring onion is 蔥 (chong) and onion is 洋蔥 (yeung chong), which translates to “western spring onion”.
Elliott-Howery is also a fan of using the white part of the spring onion in place of onion. “You could put it in the spaghetti bolognese … no one’s going to know,” she says.
Scallions vs Green Onions – What’s the Difference?
FAQ
What is a group of green onions called?
What is a batch of green onions?
What do chefs call green onions?
What is the difference between a scallion and a green onion?
But in Canada and the United Kingdom, green onions and scallions are both called spring onions. And in Mexico, spring onions are called green onions. For our purposes here in the U.S., round bulb equals spring onion and straight bulb equals scallion or green onion.
What is a green onion?
The terms “green onion” and “scallion” ( Allium cepa and Allium fistulosum) are common names used interchangeably to describe a long, thin, tubular allium with a distinctive, but mild, oniony flavor. They come from two different kinds of plants: bunching and bulbing onions, and it’s hard to know which one you’ve got.
Are spring onions the same as green onions?
In everyday usage, you’ll hear green onions, spring onions, scallions, bulbing onions, or any small variety called green onions fairly frequently. Spring onions are a whole lot like green onions, so it’s no surprise that the terms get mixed up all the time. However, spring onions have larger bulbs than green onions do.
What does a green onion look like?
Whether you call them scallions or green onions, you’re referring to a type of onion with long green stalks. The bottom bulb is white and slender—it’s the part that’s buried in the soil, while the green stalks are above ground. They are part of the Allium genus, which includes staple ingredients like common onions, garlic, leeks, and chives .