Making pickled red onions at home is so much easier than you’d imagine (there’s no cooking involved!), and once you try it, you’ll never want to NOT have a jar of them in your fridge. Quick pickles are just that—quick! They last and last in the fridge and they’re the ideal addition to so many meals. Pickled red onions are a must on top of tacos, sandwiches, salads, and beyond. With a lovely light pink-ish hue, these slightly crisp, powerfully tart quick-pickled red onions are the perfect way to dress up a cheese plate or charcuterie platter, too.
Red onions have their own beautiful sharpness, and distilled white vinegar—plus a little salt and sugar—alone would be enough to pickle them to make the most simple, basic quick-pickled red onions ever. We like to add a few seasonings to add some complexity to these irresistible red onion pickles, though, just to make them all that much more delicious. For more recipes that celebrate the hardest working allium of all, check out our Caramelized Onions, Roasted Onions, and Fried Shallots.
What You’ll Need:
- Vinegar: For this classic pickled red onion recipe, we wanted to keep things really simple and let the pickling spices do the talking. That means that we’re calling for the absolute most straightforward vinegar; distilled white vinegar! It is as neutral as can be, while packing the most serious tangy vinegar punch of all! We like that it doesn’t impart any flavor of its own (other than tartness) and so it lets the flavor of the red onion come through.
- Onions: You can scale this recipe up, but one red onion goes a long way when you pickle it!
- Pickling spices: Whole cloves, fresh garlic, bay leaf, cinnamon sticks make for a warm, fragrant combination.
How to Make Pickled Red Onions
Making pickled onions from scratch is easy to learn. And after a week or so of having pickled onions in the fridge at all times, well, you’ll find that you’re spoiled! You’ll be making them on the regular and adding them to everything because they’re just so good.
- Make the brine: stir together the vinegar, cloves, garlic, sugar, salt, bay leaf, and cinnamon stick in a 1-quart glass jar with a lid until the sugar dissolves.
- Prep the onions: place the sliced red onions in a mesh strainer and slowly pour boiling water over the onions.
- Onions, meet brine: use tongs to move the hot onions to the brine. Gently press the onions down to fully submerge.
- Cool! Pop a lid on the jar and put it in the fridge for at least one hour before eating.
- Store in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks!
How To Use Pickled Onions
We really do use these quick-pickled red onions on everything! Try them on:
More Delicious Recipes To Try
You Pickled That!
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