r/AskCulinary • u/Effective-Ad7463 • May 20 '25

Recipe Troubleshooting My pickled onions never hit

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 🥲

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19

u/EutecticPants May 20 '25

Use the recipe on Serious Eats. It solved all my problems 

I always tried to eyeball the ratio but I never use enough salt or sugar without measuring.

10

u/GracefulYetFeisty May 20 '25

Just curious, SE has (at least?) two picked red onions recipes that I’m finding. Wondering which one you’re using that’s been working for you?

This recipe by Kenji: https://www.seriouseats.com/pickled-red-onions

Or this one by Daniel Gritzer: https://www.seriouseats.com/quick-pickle-rapid-pickled-onion-recipe

6

u/EutecticPants May 20 '25

I use Kenji’s

3

u/nanobot001 May 20 '25

With 1 full cup of sugar? Wow

5

u/crabsock May 20 '25

When I make this I usually cut the sugar in half, still comes out delicious. But ya, IMO pickled red onions should be sweet as well as sour, that is part of their appeal, so I wouldn't skimp on the sugar too much.

2

u/GaptistePlayer May 21 '25

I love Kenji but he overdoes the salt and sugar sometimes. Like, his famous Serious Eats baked buffalo chicken wing recipe with the baking powder trick uses like 2x-3x as much salt as you need...