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I love pearl onions, but I'm always put off by the idea of peeling every single one. Are there any shortcuts to peeling pearl onions?

Ocaasi
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Goodbye Stack Exchange
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2 Answers2

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  • Dump pearl onions (with skin) into boiling water (on high heat)
  • Bring water back to boil
  • After 1-2 mins, take the onions out, and dump them in cold water (or ice bath)
  • After 1-2 mins, take the onions out of cold water
  • Take an onion, hold it between your index finger and thumb, and squeeze. The onion will pop right out of the skin. Repeat this step for each onion.

Hope you find this useful...

joyjit
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  • I learned that trick *after* peeling a few pounds of them one year for thanksgiving. – Joe Aug 12 '10 at 12:20
  • This is the technique I use- it works perfectly – Eliza Aug 12 '10 at 15:29
  • After all this, the markets didn't have pearl onions today; a grocer at a Wegmans thinks they may be a seasonal vegetable around here (but [this page](http://www.chow.com/ingredients/54) indicates that they should be in season now). – Goodbye Stack Exchange Aug 14 '10 at 04:22
  • It really works! A few of them were troublesome, but you can extract them from the skin by crushing the onion from the sides with your fingers just little, but don't do it too much. A few will need trimming to get the ends off. – Goodbye Stack Exchange Dec 15 '10 at 08:11
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    The piece they have all neglected to mention is that after you remove the onions from the ice bath, you MUST cut the root end off FIRST before squeezing the onion out. If you don't, all you end up with is the internal (very small) core of the onion, still attached to the root. Removing the root ensures you obtain the entire pearl onion from its "sleeve". –  Mar 23 '13 at 23:11
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    @AtticCrazy I don't think anyone else here was doing what you describe, getting only the small core. If the onions were boiled enough but not too long, a gentle squeeze should separate skin from onion, not onion from onion, especially if you squeeze from the root end and push the whole onion out the other end. – Cascabel Mar 24 '13 at 00:30
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step 1. dump pearl onions skin and all into boiling water high heat step 2. get a bowl of water with ice cubs in it to prevent the onions from burning step 3. quickly after 1-2 minutes of boiling strain them and quickly yput them into the bowl of ice water step 4. after 1-2 minutes take the onions out of the ice water strain them and they are ready for any recipe you wish to use them in hope my advice was helpful:)

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