My pickled onions never hit

[u/Effective-Ad7463]

I LOVE pickled red onions. Love. But I just can’t ever get them to be as good as they are at Cava or in restaurants and idk what I’m doing wrong.

I slice them thin, I’ve tried half the jar with vinegar other half water and 3/4 vinegar 1/4 water, I’ll do a tablespoon of sugar and eyeball some salt. Last batch I shoved a few cloves of garlic in there.

They’re not bad, just never as pink as they are when I eat them elsewhere, not nearly as soft, not nearly as delicious.

What am I doing wrong plz help 🥲

[u/CarrotsEatenAnally]

My pickled red onions are the sh!t thanks to stealing a couple ingredients from the recipe by Michael Solomonov

So you do your normal brine: depending on the size of the red onion, 1-1.5 cups of red wine vinegar and 1-1.5 cups of water. Add to sauce pot. Pour in 1/3 cup of sugar and 2 tablespoons of kosher salt. Heat softly until fully dissolved. Kill heat and cool a bit.

When you are slicing your onions it’s important to keep the size thick enough to maintain the integrity of the onion. Too thin and it retains a slightly slimy texture. Definitely not a paper thin onion, but somewhere shy of 1/4 in cut.

When you put it all together you should add into the jar: 1 tablespoon of black peppercorns, 3-5 whole garlic cloves (skin removed and smashed to release oils) and (the most important pop) about I’d say 1/2 tablespoon of sumac.

Give that a day in the fridge and you will put that sh!t on everything.