By Published July 23, 2021
I love scallions.
I do. I admit it. I don’t mean to be dramatic, but if I were a part of some professional sportsball team, scallions would be my mascot. Actually, the more I think about it, you should love scallions as much as I do. They taste great. They are superaccessible. And their uses are endless! Scallions have yet to receive the love they deserve, so here I am, just a girl, standing on top of a soapbox, trying to do something about it (OK, now I’m being dramatic).
Five recipes and five kitchen hacks to make mealtime manageable.
Listen, I’m not here to hate on the onion, but take a good hard look at a single scallion and you’ll see a stunning green hue slowly fading, ombre-style, to a bright white. What I find to be so cool is that this green-to-white effect acts as a scale of mild to intense in terms of scallion-y, oniony flavor. They can be eaten raw. They can be eaten cooked. They can be eaten on a box with a fox (sorry). They’re also the perfect size. If you’re cooking for one or two, cooking a whole onion is often far too much. Just use a few scallions instead.
They are also an actual two-for-one deal! Rather than buy an allium and a fresh herb, just use the whole scallion! Sauté the scallion whites like you would onion or garlic, and sprinkle your cooked food with the scallion greens for a pleasant yet mild finish. The way I see it, a scallion is a looker that also happens to have a great personality.
Remember that scene in Forrest Gump when Bubba was listing all the wonderful ways you can prepare shrimp? It’s just like that for scallions! Scallions have come such a long way in terms of versatility. Like I said, you can sauté them. You can bake them. You can roast them. You can pickle them.
And you can grill them! If you’ve never eaten a charred scallion straight from the grill, do yourself a favor and stop reading this article, grab a bunch of scallions, toss them with some oil, grill 'em, and devour the lot. The char transforms the scallions completely, bringing out their natural sweetness. (They're even better served on top of a piece of grilled fatty salmon.)
I could go on forever. But scallions really do have it all. I insist that you keep a bunch in your refrigerator door at all times. Because when you’re cooking and wonder what else you could add, I guarantee a scallion would happily come off the bench and onto the playing field [insert scallion foam finger].
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