The standard all-purpose cooking onion, sharp and sulphurous raw but turning sweet and mellow with heat. Roughly 1 cup chopped per medium bulb.
What it does in a recipe: The sweet aromatic base of most savoury cooking — it contributes moisture, sugar for browning, and body. Pick the swap that covers that job — the ratios below are written so you can act on them without doing any arithmetic.
Also called: Brown onion, Cooking onion
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Shallots
1 medium yellow onion (about 1 cup chopped) = 3 medium shallots, chopped
All substitutes, best first
4 ways to replace yellow onion
Shallots
Reliable
1 medium yellow onion (about 1 cup chopped) = 3 medium shallots, chopped
Shallots are milder, sweeter and carry a faint garlic note, so it takes roughly three of them to reach the aromatic weight of one onion. They also hold less water, which means they colour sooner.
MethodStart them over slightly lower heat than you would an onion — the extra sugar and lower water content mean they scorch before they soften.
Trade-offThe finished dish is more delicate and a little sweeter, without the assertive backbone a yellow onion gives a braise.
1 medium yellow onion (about 1 cup chopped) = 1 tbsp onion powder
Dehydrating concentrates the flavour compounds enormously while removing all the water and structure, so a spoonful carries the taste of a whole bulb.
MethodStir it in with the other dry seasonings rather than into hot fat — onion powder burns and turns bitter in seconds.
Trade-offYou get onion flavour and none of the bulk, moisture or sweetness. A dish that depended on the onion for body, such as a stew or a stuffing, will be noticeably thinner.
1 medium yellow onion (about 1 cup chopped) = 1 cup sliced scallions, about 1 large bunch
Scallion whites are simply immature onion, so the flavour family is identical, but the tissue is thin and mostly water and collapses almost immediately in the pan.
MethodCook the white parts first for a couple of minutes, then add the greens at the very end so they keep their colour.
Trade-offMuch fresher and lighter, and it disappears in a long braise. Best where the onion was going in late rather than as a slow-cooked base.
Sweating an onion slowly in fat for eight to ten minutes before anything else goes in is doing real work — it converts the harsh sulphur compounds into sweetness. No powdered version reproduces that.
Cooking around an allergy? Diet tags here describe the ingredient itself, not any particular brand. Processed products change formulation without notice and shared production lines are common, so read the label on everything you use. A severe allergy is a medical matter — confirm with the manufacturer or your clinician rather than relying on a substitution chart.