Shawn M. Finch, DVM

I harvested, dried and braided our yellow onions this past week.  Onion braiding is a very fun project, and much simpler than you would think!  If you would like to learn how to braid onions, I will walk you through it.  When you are done, you will have a very pretty onion arrangement that looks fancy but is actually very simple and a fun and convenient way to store onions.

Send me any questions and send me pictures of your finished products!

Just say no to onions! Good girl Joy!

Make sure you dry and store your onions and garlic out of the reach of your dogs and cats!

It took a full week in the sun to dry our onions.

Cover them or bring them inside if it is going to rain.

Otherwise, leave them out to dry so when you braid them there is no moisture in the tops to get gross later.

Once your onions are dry, gently clean the outsides of them with your hands to remove the dirt and any very dry outer layers.

You do not want to remove too much skin, but just enough to make the onion bulbs shiny and pretty.

Pull or trim most of the roots off the bottoms of the onions.

Line three onions up on a flat surface with the tops facing you.

Now you are ready to braid!

If you can braid a rope or a pony tail, you can braid onions!

Cross the onion top from the left into the middle of the other two onion tops.

Cross the onion top from the right into the middle.

Set another onion next to the onion on the right.

Cross the onion top from the left along with the other top(s) on the left into the middle.

Set another onion next to the onion on the left.

Cross the onion top from the right  along with the other top(s) on the right into the middle.

Repeat with rest of the onions until they are all connected.

When you are out of onions, continue to braid the tops till you cannot add more braid.  Tie the end in a single knot or tie the top together with a piece of rope.

Hang your finished onion braid on a hook in the kitchen!

When you need an onion, gently pull or trim one off.

Remember:

Don’t include tiny, bruised or otherwise damaged onions.  Discard those or put them in a bowl to use first because they will not last as long.

Pull each twist of the onion tops as tight as you can.

If it seems the onion tops are not distributed evenly into three cords, you can move tops to another group.

Unlike with braiding rope or hair, the braid doesn’t have to be pretty, so don’t worry so  much about that.  When you are done, the other side with the onion bulbs will be the part that shows, and it will be beautiful!

Done! I hung the finished braid on a hook in our kitchen. A saner person would have made two shorter (lighter!) braids that would be less likely to fall!  So far, so good though!