Edible or not - are sprouting onions really poisonous?
Created: 01/13/2023, 10:00 am
By: Ines Alms
Even if the myth of the dangerous green stubbornly persists: onions with sprouts are edible.
Nevertheless, a few precautions should be observed.
You know that from germinating potatoes, so in many cases it means: better keep your hands off, because they can be poisonous.
But what about the green of onions?
You don't have to have a queasy feeling here.
Onions germinate: are they really still edible with green?
A germinating onion is nothing to worry about.
© CHROMORANGE/Imago
If you let the green shoots grow long enough, you essentially get nothing but spring onions or spring onions.
These exist as a separate species, for example the perennial winter hedge onion (Allium fistulosum), but the shoots of the normal onion (Allium cepa) are also edible.
They are usually harvested before the bulb thickens down to its usual size.
As nutritionist Dagmar von Cramm explains on
SWR television
, the green sprouts can even score big in terms of health: they contain more vitamin C, folic acid, iron and zinc than onion bulbs.
The tuber itself is still edible.
If you grow onions in your own garden, you will sometimes find flowers on the mature plant, which make a very good topping for salads or on sandwiches.
Be careful with soft and cut onions
If stored correctly, kitchen onions can be kept for several months, but the following should be observed:
If onions are green, this can be an indication that they were stored too moist or too light.
Onions are best stored in a dry, cool, dark and airy place.
The refrigerator is not suitable for this.
Once the onion germinates, it also softens and spoils more quickly, so it doesn't last very long.
If it smells musty, throw it away.
You should be more careful with cut onions, as they offer more surface area for germs to attack.
While a halved onion will keep for up to four days, diced onions should be consumed as soon as possible.
It is also very easy to make onion chips yourself from leftover vegetables.
You can find even more exciting garden topics in the regular newsletter of our partner 24garten.de.
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If you still don't want to eat the sprouts, you can also plant the onion directly in the bed and wait until it becomes a stately "spring onion" with larger growth.
Anyone who likes to be supplied with fresh onion greens all year round is best to reach for Altai leeks, which can even be harvested when there is snow.
