Quick Pickled Red Onions: Tangy & Crisp with Pink Pizzazz

Quick pickled red onions are a lovely condiment for so many types of dishes. They are an easy way to give a plain dish pizzazz because they’re delightfully tangy, they keep their crunch, and they’re quick to make. The naturally bright pink color adds a visual pop to your dish as well!

You can find quick pickled red onions in cuisines from all over the world: Latin American, European, Chinese, American, and many others. They go great, on my French-style lentil and goat cheese salad, or on tacos or sandwiches if you need inspiration!

Pickling is a traditional way of preserving food, whether with vinegar, like in this recipe, or by fermentation, like for kimchi or sauerkraut. Pickling also can improve the digestibility of foods without cooking them. Indeed, after eating these pickled onions you’re much less likely to have the dreaded onion breath than with raw onions!

Why do the onions turn pink?

In the case of red onions, the acetic acid in the vinegar reacts with the anthocyanin pigments in the red onion. At such an acidic pH, the pigments go from purple to bright pink. The same phenomenon occurs in red cabbage, too. 😉

Ingredient notes:

• Vinegar: Here we use white vinegar to pickled the red onions, but apple cider vinegar or red wine vinegar can work fine, too, depending on the flavor you want. Just avoid mild vinegar (with less than 5% acidity). The onions won’t pickle (they don’t turn pink). I tried it once, and the onions were like raw.
• Water: Our brine is half water, half vinegar here to cut down the bite from the vinegar. You can use more vinegar if you want, but not less. Some boiling water poured over the onions in a colander to start also helps quicken the pickling along without going so far as to soften the onions.
• Salt and sugar: Both help preserve the onions while adding flavor.
• Aromatics: Herbs and whole spices are there to add an extra layer of flavor. Here, we stick with basic spices like bay leaf, peppercorn, and thyme so that these pickled red onions work with everything. The recipe calls for bruised peppercorn: crack them a little bit to let the flavor out more easily. Feel free to mix up the spices to suit your dish!

How to store:

These quick pickled red onions will last a couple weeks. Fill them with their brine into a clean jar, put the lid on tight, and store in the refrigerator. You can even pickle the onions directly in a canning jar.

Print Recipe

5 from 1 vote

Quick Pickled Red Onions

A delightful tangy and crisp condiment for so many dishes

Prep Time10 minutes mins

Total Time25 minutes mins

Course: Vegetables

Cuisine: American, European, Latin American

Keyword: red onion

Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 1 medium red onion about 150 g
• 125 ml (½ cup) white vinegar
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 thyme branches
• ½ tsp black peppercorn bruised

Instructions

• Bring about 2 cups of water to boil. Slice the onions about 3 mm (1/8 inch) thick, separating the layers, and place the slices in a colander over the sink. Pour the boiling water over the onion slices. Place the drained onions in a small bowl or a mason jar.
• Mix the remaining ingredients plus 120 ml (½ cup) cold water. Stir to dissolve the salt and sugar. Pour over the onions, making sure the onions are entirely submerged in the brine.
• Let sit at least 15 minutes until the onions turn bright pink. You can use the onions immediately or store them, tightly covered, in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.