Which Spring Onion to Use, When
All you need to know about alliums.
Around this time every year, our farmers begin to drop off piles of fresh, uncured spring onions to our foodhub (we live in a constant state of eyes-almost-watering for about three weeks). They signal the coming of other jewels of spring (asparagus! peas! berries!), but unlike those heavy-hitters, spring onions aren’t easily recognizable, and the use cases for each type are pretty fuzzy. Out of comfort, you might tend to stick to one all season. We’re here to change that. Indulge us this once, and try one of our five favorite alliums this season.
Spring Onions
“Spring onions” can be used to refer to this whole category, but there are actually *spring onions*. You can identify these guys by their bulbs: they’re much rounder at the base, and can be red or white, or a bit of both. Harvested early in the spring, they’re much sweeter than more mature run-of-the-mill onions. Since they have a fatter bulb, they’re perfect for grilling (and won’t fall through the grates). Or char them in a cast-iron pan, like in this recipe for Turmeric Chicken Kebabs with Charred Spring Veggies.
Green Garlic
These stalks look suspiciously like spring onions, but take a whiff and you’ll know you’ve got green garlic on your hands. Green garlic has less of a bite than mature garlic and has a fresher, must-be-spring flavor. Use them in place of regular garlic (pesto gets our vote), or chop them up and add to dressings and sauces; because of when these are harvested, the whole stalk is edible. We use them to add some zing to traditional cacio e pepe pasta in this weeknight dinner kit.
Green Onions
Call ’em green onions, call ’em scallions (they’re the same thing). You know how you sweat onions as the first step in making a sauce or stew? Do the same thing with green onions. Quickly sweat them in a slick of hot oil, then add grains, meat, fish or eggs to the pan — whatever you’re cooking will take on a bright, onion-y fragrance (in a good way). Hikari Farms supplies us with a really special variety from southern Japan called Senmoto Negi — these have an unbeatable flavor, but are much more pungent than traditional green onions so use sparingly!
Baby Leeks
Yes, these look very much like every other spring onion we’ve listed so far (maybe slap a label on the bag in your fridge). But! They have a hidden benefit. Raw baby leeks are crisp like other spring onions, but when cooked, they become melt-in-your-mouth creamy. This is the time to take out the good butter: cook them low and slow in the fat, checking on them every once and a while until soft (no need to be a hawk). Seasonal dinner side, solved.
Ramps
During two short weeks in spring, it seems as if everyone drops everything they’re doing to buy ramps, cook ramps, eat ramps, talk about how they’re eating ramps. Yes, these shimmering red and green wild leeks are good. No, you won’t be missing out if you don’t get to them this spring. But if you do, use them in a way that will help them last all year long: mix chopped ramps into softened butter and freeze, or blend them with oil and freeze into cubes. That way, you can easily add a nice hit of spring to any meal in any season.
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