Your gluten free diet – any diet – needs a good supply of vegetables. Onions and their relatives make gluten free foods taste great!

The onion family includes not just onions, but leeks, garlic and other similar vegetables.  All are both healthy and give your food a big taste boost.  I you find your gluten free diet boring, make sure you include some of the vegetables described in this post.

Onions

Onions come in a range of sizes.  More important though, is the strength of the taste.

Onions store well if cool and dry, so it is easy to keep a good stock of them.  If you’re not sure what to make for dinner, just start frying onions, and see what else is in the fridge.  You’re sure to come up with something!

You can also fry onions in greater quantities than you need for the meal at hand, and store the rest in the fridge.  This makes putting together a gluten-free meal quick and easy, and it is guaranteed to taste great.

You can boil onions, but is often not the best way to get their flavor.  Much better is to fry them very slowly for a long time or to bake them.   They are also fantastic on the BBQ, or arranged around a roast for long, slow cooking.

Yellow Onions

This is often what people think of when they think “onion”.  They are often known as Spanish onions, but this is just one variety.  They have light brown skin and pale yellowish flesh. They tend to be mild-tasting.

Yellow onions are usually large, which makes them easier and faster to peal when cooking.  Smaller, younger ones usually taste stronger.

You can chop them up and fry them, or bake them, stuff them, cut them into rings, etc.  They are better cooked than raw in my opinion.

Yellow onions make a good basis for a gluten-free meal.  Start frying the onions, combine them with other vegetables, and any kind of protein that goes well with strong flavors, such as beef, tofu, beans, lentils etc.

Red Onions

Red onions have red skin and white flesh, although the outer edge of each layer has a reddish tinge.

Red onions are milder and sweeter than yellow onions, and are a better choice if eaten raw, for example in salads.  When fried, they lack the flavor yellow onions have.

White Onions

White onions are usually firmer and more uniform in size and shape than red or yellow onions.  They have a stronger flavor than yellow onions, and are best cooked.

Because they are so uniform, they are a great choice for stuffing.

Gerlots

These are small onions with white flesh and green skins.  They are great raw and excellent in salads.  You’ll sometimes see them sold as “salad onions”.  You can also include them in lightly cooked dishes such as those make with eggs, or in stir fries when you don’t want to spend a lot of time cooking the onions first.

They fall apart when cooked for a long time.  This may be what you want in soups and stews (personally, I like the texture a more robust onion adds to these dishes), but they are a poor choice for stand-alone frying.

Cipolla (Borettane) Onions

These are rather small onions.  They are rather sweet and not too strong.  They don’t need to be chopped due to their size, but they are a lot of work to peel.

They are great fried while, roasted or pickled.

Pickling Onions

This describes a use for an onion rather than a variety.  Silverskins are a strong-tasting onion with white flesh.  You can also pickle small yellow varieties.

Gluten Free Diet and Onions

Managing a gluten allergy or celiac disease can seem onerous due to restricted choices.  Actually, there is plenty to choose from and you can eat a lot of tasty gluten-free food!  This article is just a small example of the gluten free foods available to you, so you’re missing out on less than you think.

Tagged as: Gluten Allergy, Gluten Free Diet, Gluten Free Food, Gluten Free Vegetables