Yellow versus White Onions

[Perilagu Khan]

Bought groceries this morning and noticed that yellow onions were over twice as expensive as white onions. What gives? Are yellow onions so clearly superior? Or is the disparity likely due to some odd supply-and-demand quirk?

[James Cristinian]

There is nothing better than a homegrown onion. I like Texas 1014s..One would think an onion is an onion, but nothing beats fresh ones out of the garden. The same goes with potatos, plus all the obvious ones, green beans, corn, tomatoes, etc.

[Chowrin]

Taste different? stronger?

[James Cristinian]

Not stronger, sweeter, sounds stupid, but just better. It's the same as any homegrown vegetable, fresher is better. I didn't believe it until a friend of mine gave me some from his garden, they were incredible. I grew them in my garden at my house, and when I downsized to an apartment, I grow them in containers, just as good.

[Bacardi1]

I don't believe any one onion is superior to another. It all depends on your personal taste & what you're using them for.

Unless they're specifically asked for in a recipe, I only use white onions in salsa & a number of Mexican dishes where they're specified.

For regular cooking, I use regular yellow onions &/or sometimes yellow sweets - like Vidalia or Walla Walla, Texas Sweet, etc., etc.

For raw eating, like on burgers & other sandwiches, I really like reds or yellow sweets, although the reds sometimes make their way into cooked Mediterranean dishes.

As far as prices, I think it's simply a matter of the same situations that haunt most produce - supply/demand, weather & crop fluctuations, sources/vendors, & shipping costs.

[cazort]

I find this sort of thing oscillates hugely over time and from one location to another.

It's probably just a local, temporary case of supply-and-demand.

[escondido123]

I started using white onions a few years ago when I was cooking a lot of Mexican food. Now, it is my standard onion unless I am making stock where I want the yellow color from the onion skin. White onions are half the price of yellow ones here, at least they were when I bought them yesterday. I find the white so versatile, great for standard uses and wonderful in salads because they don't have that slightly bitter/acrid taste that I notice with other onions.

[Perilagu Khan]

Belay this. Just looked at the receipt and the white onions were discounted 50 percent. Without the discount there is virutally no price difference, which, as I recall, is much more typical.

[GH1618]

Supply and demand, but there's nothing odd about that. There are many varieties of onion, and price will vary with season and type of onion. There are several types of yellow onion, and some are produced in smaller quantities or in a shorter season, so are more expensive.

I think of a white onion as a different product than a yellow onion, so the price comparison is not relevant anyway.

[John Francis]

Quite right. Yellow onions are more onion-y than whites, which I only buy when for some reason I can't get the yellows. And then there are red onions...

[Perilagu Khan]

But yellow, white and red all belong to the onion family, correct?

[John Francis]

Sure, and we all belong to the family of man, but we don't all taste the same. :-)

[Perilagu Khan]

Having spent precious little time in Borneo (or San Francisco), I'll have to take your word on that. ;)