Southern Tennessee Onions Casserole Recipe - Easy (2024)

FAQs

What kind of onion is best for sauce? ›

Yellow onions are perfect for stews, soups, barbecues, roasts and sauces. Avoid eating them raw as they have a strong flavour.

When you are sauteing onions to build flavor as a base for your dish (soup, tomato sauce, you name it), the yellow onion is your friend. That being said, white onions are a totally acceptable substitute for yellow, especially if you're cooking them.

Sweet Onions – Walla Walla and Vidalia are the most common kinds of sweet onions. These onions lack the sharp, astringent taste of other onions and really do taste sweet.

Although Spanish onions have a bit of sweetness, they're not as sweet as sweet onions, which are a category all on their own. Sweet onions are flatter, softer, and have a taste unlike any other onion variety, being truly, well, sweet. Sweet onions are also certainly the favored choice to consume fresh or raw.

White onions are probably the strongest-tasting onion on this list. They're typically used in Asian and Mexican dishes, as well as potato and macaroni salads. You can also sauté them, making them ideal for French onion soup or any other food in which you want to add sweet or sour flavor.

Yes, sautéing the onions before adding them to the sauce is recommended. This process helps to enhance their flavor and soften their texture.

Oregano. Oregano is another herb that pairs very well with onion dishes. The strong flavor of oregano combines with the stronger flavor of onion, softening one another and resulting in a perfect pairing. The more intense flavor of dried oregano is best used with a light hand, or you risk overpowering the dish.

While certain vegetables can work just fine added directly to simmering soups and stews (say, carrots and celery), other vegetables (onions, garlic, and the like) will almost always need at least a brief sweat in a fat-based liquid before adding the remaining ingredients.

All types of onions are good for you, but this dark reddish-purple variety, sometimes called purple onion, has especially high levels of quercetin and other helpful plant compounds known as flavonoids. Flavonoids give many fruits, vegetables, and flowers their colors.

It's a matter of terroir, he explains. And the Walla Walla soil and growing conditions give that onion a more complex flavor profile "that tells you that this is an onion," he says. The Vidalia may be milder or sweeter, but to Dean, flavor makes the winner.

What is the weakest onion? ›

At the grocery store they're likely labeled by color (white, yellow, and red), but at a farmers market, you may see proper names, like Australian Browns or Red Zeppelins. In terms of pungency, white are generally the mildest, red the sharpest, and yellow somewhere in between.

A Vidalia onion is a type of sweet onion. It has a mild flavor, a uniquely flat shape, and a relatively high sugar content. The soil in Vidalia, Georgia has an unusually low amount of sulfur — that's why this variety is more sweet than sharp. It doesn't have the pungent, intensely acidic flavor of other onions.

Cebollas Cambray (or Chambray onions), are known as the Mexican Spring Onions. They are bigger in size than the regular spring onions and look more like a big bulb. They're very tender and when they're grilled/cooked, they taste a little sweet.

Officially, the name of the onion released by Texas A&M University in 1944 is Texas Early Grano. This has been grown in Central America, Palestine, Australia and other parts of the warmer regions of the world.” -Ernest Mortenson, 1979 San Antonio Light Newspaper.

The best onions for tomato sauce are sweet onions, brown onions, and white onions in that order. I've used red onions for this tomato sauce, and the red onion has too strong of a flavor making the sauce a little unbalanced.

And while we prefer yellow for cooking, white for garnishing, and red for pickling, grilling, and everything in between, they're generally interchangeable: Switching between them won't ruin a dish, even if it slightly alters its flavor or appearance.

White or yellow onion will do. Garlic: Either finely minced or pressed. Crushed red pepper flakes: Which we will briefly sauté in the olive oil (or butter) to bring out their flavor. Feel free to double the amount of crushed red pepper flakes if you would like a spicier sauce.

You can substitute shallots in nearly any recipe that calls for onions—just make sure you're using the same volume. (For example, several medium shallots equals about one small onion.)