Find out how to make pickled red onions with this simple and speedy recipe. These tasty pickled red onions are both sweet and tangy, making them a fantastic accompaniment to a cheese board or a ploughman’s platter. With a preparation time of only 10 minutes and a quick 30 minutes in the fridge, you’ll have a delicious and versatile condiment in no time.
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Easy pickled red onions
If you’ve always wanted to make pickled red onions, but have been put off by the thought of how difficult they are to make, then this is the recipe you have been looking for.
These pickled red onions take literally 10 minutes to get into the jar, and another 30 minutes in the refrigerator to chill, and they are ready to eat. Seriously – if you can slice an onion you can make a jar of these pickled onions.
What I love about them is that you don’t have to spend what feels like hours peeling mounds of tiny pickling onions to make these pickled red onions. All you have to do is peel 2 or 3 largish red onions, cut them into slices and pop them into a jar with the pickling liquid.
In addition, these pickled red onions are ready-sliced so there’s no danger of your onion jumping onto the floor when you try to stab it with a fork and miss 🙂
And oh my goodness, they are so delicious. They are sweet and tangy all at the same time, exactly the way a pickled onion should taste. And because they are not cooked at all, they retain their crispiness and give a satisfying ‘crunch’ when you bite into a mouthful. No soft and squishy pickled onions on my watch!
Another thing I love about them is that they will keep for 2 weeks in the refrigerator without the bother of sterilising the jars first. Of course, you can sterilise the jars and store the onions for up to a year, and I’ve provided instructions further down the post on how to sterilise jars. But because these pickled red onions are so quick and easy to make, I’m quite happy to make a fresh batch every two weeks or so.
Serve them with anything
You would typically eat these pickled red onions anywhere you would eat a normal pickled onion:
- Spread them on a sandwich – pickled onions add a tangy crunch to any sandwich, especially ham and cheese.
- Add them to a ploughman’s platter or a charcuterie board – they complement a pork pie and a slice of cheese perfectly.
- Serve them as a salad with a barbeque – I’m drooling at the thought of these onions topped on a piece of perfectly cooked steak or sausage and sandwiched in a crusty bread roll.
- Pickled onions are also commonly served as a condiment in Indian cuisine. Why not serve them next time you make a biriyani?
If you want to whip up a quick batch of pickled red onions yourself, this is how to make them.
What you will need
Equipment
You don’t need very much. If you have a mandolin, this will make short work of slicing the onions. If you don’t have a mandolin, then you will need a sharp knife and a chopping board and you can simply slice the onions with those.
You will also need a small saucepan for boiling the pickling liquid, and some mason jars to store the onions in. I found a jar in Asda with a pretty pink lid (the same colour as my website colours) and thought I’d be clever and store the onions in that. It did the job, but didn’t make for good photos – it looks a bit lopsided 🙂 .
Ingredients
All you will need for making these pickled red onions are 5 simple ingredients, and two of them are salt and water!
**You can find the complete list of ingredients and full instructions for making these pickled red onions on the printable recipe card at the end of this post**
This recipe will make one pint or approximately 2 cups of pickled onions.
Red onions – red onions have a much milder taste than white or yellow onions so they are ideal for making this recipe. You could use white onions if you wish, but then I would advise that you temper them slightly by slicing them and then placing them in a colander and pouring boiling water over them. This will help to dilute the sharpness of the white onions.
Vinegar – this is cider vinegar (as sold by my local supermarket). Cider vinegar is less astringent than malt vinegar and has a less sharp taste. You could also use red wine or sherry vinegar, which are both milder than malt vinegar. If you only have malt vinegar you can use that, but you may find that you need to add a touch more sugar to compensate for the extra acidity.
Salt – I like to add a small amount of salt, but this is purely optional and to your own taste. I found the onions were quite bland without the salt.
Brown sugar – this adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the vinegar
Water – this is used to top up the vinegar to the required volume. Vinegar on its own would be too tart so the water helps counteract this.
What to do
Measure the water, vinegar, salt and sugar into a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Stir until the sugar has dissolved and then remove from the heat.
While the vinegar is boiling you can peel and slice the onions. I chose to slice them into rings, but if you prefer to slice the onions from top to bottom that is perfectly fine. Make the onion slices as thin as possible – about one-eighth of an inch is perfect.
Pack the onions tightly into your container.
Pour over the hot vinegar mixture. Make sure you cover the onions completely.
Seal the jar, let it come to room temperature and then store it in the refrigerator until you are ready to use. The onions will be ready to eat within 30 minutes, but the flavour does improve with standing.
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How to sterilise jars
If you would like to make these pickled onions and store them for longer than 2 weeks, I would recommend you sterilise your jars before using them to store the onions. You can store them in a cool place, like your pantry, but do refrigerate them once they’ve been opened.
This is how you do it:
To sterilise jars in the oven:
- Wash the jars and the lids in hot soapy water, rinse, but do not dry them.
- Stand them upside down on a baking tray while they’re still wet.
- Place the tray of clean, wet jars and lids into a preheated oven at 180ºC / 350ºF for 15 mins.
- Don’t place rubber seals in the oven – remove the seals from the lids and place them in a pan of boiling water for 5 minutes.
To sterilise jars in the microwave:
- Wash the jars and the lids in hot soapy water, rinse, but do not dry them.
- Place them in the microwave whilst still wet.
- Microwave on full power for 2 minutes
- If the lids are made of metal DO NOT MICROWAVE. Instead, place the lids in a pot of boiling water and boil for 5 minutes.
Pickled red onion FAQs
If you would like to vary the taste of the onions, you can add other spices to the pickling liquid:
– a few black peppercorns
– a pinch of dried red chilli flakes
– one or two cloves of garlic
– half a teaspoon of dried woody herbs such as rosemary or thyme
Yes, you can use this recipe to pickle other vegetables. Make sure that the vegetables are cut into thin pieces so that the pickling liquid can penetrate easily. Why not try pickling julienned carrots or cucumbers or some thinly sliced radishes?
I’m afraid I’ve never tried to freeze them – I think the texture would alter on defrosting. If you do freeze them successfully I’d love to know.
To make a larger batch you can double or even triple the pickling liquid ingredients so that you have sufficient to cover the onions:
For every cup of vinegar you should add one-third cup of water.
Be careful when doubling up on the sugar and salt – you don’t want the onions to be too sweet or too salty.
Save for later
If you would like to make your own pickled red onions why not save the recipe to one of your Pinterest boards so you can find it easily? Just click on the image below.
Alternatively, you can save the recipe by clicking on the floating heart icon on the right-hand side of the screen.
Other recipes
If you enjoy making your own pickles and relishes, why not take a look at some of my other recipes:
- Green tomato chutney – sweet and tangy, with a slight bite of chilli and a subtle warmth of ginger and mustard
- Thai sweet chilli sauce – a hot and sweet spicy chilli sauce with a hint of garlic
- Spicy beetroot salad – ginger, mustard and a hint of allspice make this beetroot salad zing
- Curried green bean salad – no barbeque is complete without a dish of this delicious green bean curry salad.
The recipe
How to make pickled red onions – in only 10 minutes
(Click the stars to rate this recipe)
Ingredients
- 3 medium red onions
- 1 cup cider vinegar
- 1 to 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ⅓ cup water
Instructions
- Measure the water, vinegar, salt and sugar into a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Stir until the sugar has dissolved and then remove from the heat.1 cup cider vinegar, 1 to 2 tablespoons brown sugar, ½ teaspoon salt, ⅓ cup water
- While the vinegar is boiling you can peel and slice the onions. I chose to slice them into rings, but if you prefer to slice the onions from top to bottom that is perfectly fine. Make the onion slices as thin as possible – about one-eighth of an inch is perfect.3 medium red onions
- Pack the onions tightly into a glass mason jar.
- Pour in the hot vinegar mixture. Make sure you cover the onions completely.
- Seal the jar, let it come to room temperature and then store it in the refrigerator until you are ready to use. The onions will be ready to eat within 30 minutes, but the flavour does improve with standing.
Notes
- Wash the jars and the lids in hot soapy water, rinse, but do not dry them.
- Stand them upside down on a baking tray while they’re still wet.
- Place the tray of clean, wet jars and lids into a preheated oven at 180ºC / 350ºF for 15 mins.
- Don’t place rubber seals in the oven – remove the seals from the lids and place them in a pan of boiling water for 5 minutes.
- Wash the jars and the lids in hot soapy water, rinse, but do not dry them.
- Place them in the microwave whilst still wet.Microwave on full power for 2 minutes
- If the lids are made of metal DO NOT MICROWAVE. Instead, place the lids in a pan of boiling water and boil for 5 minutes.
Nutrition
I am not a nutritionist. The nutrition information has been calculated using an on-line calculator, and is intended for information and guidance purposes only. If the nutrition information is important to you, you should consider calculating it yourself, using your preferred tool.
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