# Traditional Homemade Pickled Onions

A traditional recipe for pickled onions, perfect for the Christmas table or as gifts.

- Servings: 4 servings
- Total time: 100 min
- Cuisine: British
- Category: Sauce & Condiment
- Language: en

## Ingredients

- 1 kilo small pickling onions
- 1200 ml pickling vinegar, or malt vinegar
- 50 g salt
- 200 g white sugar
- 6 teaspoons pickling spices
- 6 teaspoons mixed peppercorns, coriander seeds, mustard seeds, allspice berries, and crumbled dry bay leaves

## Instructions

1. Put all of the unpeeled onions in a large bowl and pour boiling water over them, leave to steep in the water for 1 minute, before tipping them into a colander to drain.
2. Place the onions into the bowl again and cover them with cold water now.
3. Peel the skins off the onions, making a small cut at the root end to ease the skins off.
4. Once all of the onions have been peeled, layer the peeled onions with the salt in a large bowl, cover them with a clean tea towel and leave them overnight or up to 24 hours in the salt.
5. The following day, drain and rinse the onions thoroughly, pat them dry and pack them into some clean and sterilised jars.
6. Pour the pickling vinegar over the onions in the jars, including all the pickling spices, seal the jars and allow to mature for 4 weeks before serving.
7. Make the spiced pickling vinegar: Pour the vinegar into a large saucepan and add the sugar and the pickling spices. Bring to the boil, then take the vinegar off the heat immediately, cover with a lid and leave to go cold and infuse for 24 hours

## Equipment

- large bowl
- colander
- clean tea towel
- clean and sterilised jars
- large saucepan

## Tips

- You can use a mixture of malt and red wine vinegar.
- Cider apple vinegar can also be used.
- Add some chilli flakes to the pickling spices for extra heat.
- Pack the onions into small jars, add a paper cover and some ribbon and give them away as gifts or as part of a food hamper.
- Other aromatic seeds can be used in homemade pickling spice, such as cumin, dill as well as cinnamon sticks and star anise.
- If you like a little heat, then you can add a couple of dried chillies to the pickling vinegar

## Source

- Original video: https://www.lavenderandlovage.com/2020/11/traditional-homemade-pickled-onions.html#mv-creation-87-jtr
- Recipe page: https://www.cliprecipe.com/recipe/abbd779b-a59d-4b40-a28b-67813ca39e48
- Extracted: 2025-03-13

Extracted from the video by Clip Recipe (https://www.cliprecipe.com). Quantities and steps are as stated or shown in the video. Site guide for agents: https://www.cliprecipe.com/llms.txt