My default onion is a plain yellow onion. Mother never bought anything but white onions. I only use red onions for salads or if it is specifically called for in a recipe.

I switched to red after learning they have the greatest nutritional value. I will buy specific onions for specific recipes but my always have on hand is now red. it used to be yellow.

Ditto......plain yellow onion. But I always have scallions/green onions on hand and usually shallots as well. Different flavors, different usage :-)

When in season, I will also buy Walla Walla sweets. But they don't keep well so only get if I have a particular dish in mind. And I only use red onions in Greek salads. I don't care to cook with them and not a big fan of raw onions ever....except scallions.

Red onions only for me. White for most things. Vidalia if I can get them for onion rings and caramelized onions. Green onions always. Green onions are very easy to grow from seeds if you have only a little space for a pot. I fill a pot with potting soil, top the last few inches with seed starting mix, it is sterile, and sow usually "Evergreen Bunching". They look like grass coming up. thin as you need one, scatter a few more seeds when it starts getting thin. Fertilize lightly when you think of it. You can also clip just the green tops and the top will regrow. I usually like all of the onion in my dish, so I just pull.

Bbstx, I would have to buy pantyhose also! We went through a few years of family funerals and I always wore my black hose and black dress, with the black coat if it was cold. For the last few the hose had worn out, so I just skipped the hose.

I use red onions raw, I don't cook with them. I prefer Vidalias for cooking and sliced raw on some sandwiches. Also keep shallots and scallions handy.

Residing in my house are red onions for using raw, white, yellow or vidalia onions for sauteeing, scallions for salads and toppings and shallots for a different flavor profile as someone mentioned above.

I only buy sweet onions and shallots.

Raw red onion for me, too. I pretty much use yellow onions for most cooking...soups, stews, etc. I'll use white onions raw or for sautéing. Green onions, chives, leeks, shallots, pearl onions, garlic...just depends on what you're making and personal taste.

red, sweet vidalia, yellow and white in that order ... pearl onions if on sale.

I don't care for red onions, though occasionally use them in recipes, and I never use sweet onions, though, again, I have once or twice for recipes. For raw or when it's big and present, I prefer white onions, the real kind. Pearl onions, I also prefer white for the same reason. For cooking, I use yellow onions. They're pretty interchangeable, though. It's a texture difference, rather than a big flavor difference. I like scallions and leeks, but the spring onions we get in the store are obnoxiously pungent without any redeeming features. I suspect there are better ones elsewhere since people get excited over them. Our chives are pretty wimpy. More grassy than alium-ish.

I've had this book, along with several others in the 'Country Garden' series, a long time. Good info, recipes and photography.

I grow sweet yellow for immediate use, white for short term storage and red for long term storage, I've kept a couple of last year's red onions through March. Leeks store even better, and I grow those too.

I like sweet onions for onion rings and the white onions for french onion soup. I tend to use them based on their storage ability, so if I have sweet onions that need to be used, I use them. When they are gone, I start sorting through the white ones and using them up, then the red ones. I seldom buy onions other than for specific recipes/purposes when I don't have that kind left being stored.

I still have two leeks in the storage basket that I pulled last September, and I'm just waiting to see how long they'll last!

Annie

Annie, I had no idea leeks kept so well.

I only buy red if I want something pretty, such as in a salad. Otherwise it's yellow onions. I love buying a 10-lb bag when they're on sale, but only if they're big. I detest the little golf-ball sized ones, they're too hot and hard to peel.

zinnia, I didn't either, I've always sliced and dehydrated them, thinking they couldn't be kept well. But I tossed a couple into a basket of onions, as an experiment and put them into storage with the butternut squash and the potatoes and they are still there. The outside layers have dried out and will need to be peeled off. I did trim the tops down until the leeks were about 18 inches tall and the tops dried out a bit, but they did not rot and the leeks are still good in the middle. I was amazed. I don't think I'd really try to keep them more than 3 or 4 months, the outside layers dry out and become unusable but the centers are still good:

I cut this one open tonight, it's been in storage for about 8 months. As I said, I'd probably try to keep them 3 or 4 months, not because they don't taste good, but because they dry out and you lose some the layers. This last picture was the "bulb" of the leek.

Annie

Yellow for cooking. I also like red or scallions in raw applications.

Chloebud, that's clearly a book by someone who knows his onions :-)

I used to use what we call brown and I suspect you call yellow onions for most things, but about five years ago DH discovered that if he eats onions or garlic he gets intestinal problems, mostly bloating. I can use spring onions (but only the green part) or chives in my cooking, but that's it.

My onion preference is scallions and leeks.

In Roscoff, west Brittany, they grow pink onions that are lovely. They're great all rounders . The type the Johnnie's sold from their bikes in England.

I also use yellow for all around general use....but love me a big slice of Vidalia or Walla Walla or Colorado sweet on a burger or a sandwich.
Do you know that red onions come in sweet and pungent? I like the sweet variety for the salad my Italian friend called "salata" which was sweet red onion tomato and green peppers, dressed with salt pepper oil and vinegar and a touch of sugar.
I really don't use white onions for anything.
And depending on what I plan to do with them, I like the small billiard ball sized onions, they fit into the feed tube of the cuisinart and make short work of onion soup.

I primarily use Vidalia. Also keep shallots on hand. I love scallions but they go bad so quick. Like a spring onion too.

I think I am a really good cook but I have never cooked with leeks....although I love them.

I prefer red onions to white or yellow, because red seems tastier raw or vinegared. When I cook onions, the differences in flavour diminish and by the time they are caramelized, there’s no way for me to tell if they were red white or yellow.

QUESTION (raises hands) QUESTION (jumps up)

If you could only take one kind of allium to a desert island, which would it be?

I didn’t know, before looking it up just now, how broad the genus is:

“Allium is a genus of monocotyledonous flowering plants that includes hundreds of species, including the cultivated onion, garlic, scallion, shallot, leek, and chives“ wikipedia sez.

Allium is one of those words I love! I also really like shallot but you have to say it like you are speaking with a French accent and not the way I grew up saying it!

My preference depends on use: Yellow onions for stock, stews, mire poix, etc. red onions for raw use in some dishes. I soak them in cold water and pat dry to get out some of the pungency, scallions in salads, shallots for certain soups, sauces or casseroles, leeks for sauteing, sweet onions for a nice slice on a burger, etc. I keep all but leeks on hand.

I use them all - red for salads, yellow for all-purpose cooking, white for Mexican meals. Sometimes Vidalias for carmelized onions on pizza. I love them all.

John, my choice would be easy, it would be chives. They taste a little like green onions, a bit like garlic, I can add them to potato salad or soup, they grow like crazy nearly anywhere. The only thing I haven't been able to do with them is dehydrate them and have them still taste like anything, they seem to lose all pungency when dehydrated. I love them, though, and use them a lot, and the purple flowers are pretty when the grandkids pick them, even if they do "stink up" the kitchen, LOL. Both edible AND decorative, double bonus!

Annie

Only one allium? Garlic....hands down Can't imagine cooking without it.

John, that's mean. Worse than Lars's limit on cheese. I guess it would have to be scallions, if I could have an unlimited supply of them. There's the green part for one's green veg needs and the white part for the oniony needs.

I know this question is probably more appropriate for one of the gardening forums, but before I go there, can anyone tell me if the mass pictured below is leeks? It is being grown by a friend of my BIL. BIL says that his friend got whatever it is from his ex-father-in-law. He describes it as looking like an overgrown scallion - straight up and down, not bulb shaped, but larger than a scallion. They multiply. He has to divide them from time to time. He uses them as he would onions in cooking. FWIW, the grower is an excellent cook, so I’m surprised he would not recognize a leek.

was that Paul prudhomme that used to pronounce it ... ohn yohn?

Yep.

That is garlic scapes. If unfamiliar where it was planted every year it will pop up and multiply via bulbils. If not harvested and divided it will continue to produce. In clumps.

Cool, Sleeve. What do you do with it? Will it produce garlic if left alone? Should he not be eating the root end? I know less than nothing about garlic scapes!

"was that Paul prudhomme that used to pronounce it ... ohn yohn?"

And also Justin Wilson...I think?

bbstx, if the scapes (the little bulbs on top) are cut off, the bulb on the bottom will grow bigger. The scapes taste like mild garlic and can be eaten/cooked with. Scapes are the result of hard necked garlic sending up that flower stalk, although they don't actually bloom. The stalk will curl around, I was always told to cut them when they were a circle. The stalk in some varieties straightens out as it gets bigger and the bigger it gets the tougher it is so the scapes should be cut while it's still young and tender. You don't HAVE to cut them, you'll still get a garlic bulb underground, but the bulb will be bigger if the scapes are cut.

I've never grown garlic from seed, only from cloves of garlic, so I'm only assuming it will reseed itself if the scape is left. When half of the outer leaves of the garlic plant die, it's time to pull the garlic and use it, the bulb grows under the ground.

Annie

@annie1992, good to know what to do with the scapes, and when. I don’t think this is garlic. The guy who has it in his yard says it grows straight up and down like green onions/scallions but bigger. Sounds like leeks to me. Do leeks also have scapes? Do all alliums have scapes? Maybe I can get him to pull one and send me a picture!

My leeks have never gotten scapes, but I've only grown one type and I understand that others can, so you may be right. I've never had the leaves of leeks bend down like that either, they always stand straight up, but again, that could be a function of the variety.

I have missed a head of garlic when I was digging garlic and it grows into a big garlic "bunch", with no actual big head of garlic, just a lot of smaller plants all bunched together but I think it would be easy to tell garlic from a leek, even if it's not clear from a photograph.

It'll be interesting to find out what that "mystery" allium is!!

Annie

Thank you for all these great answers! I picked up a single vidalia onion for a recipe this evening. I otherwise still have several reds on hand.

One allum? My answer would be garlic, for both its culinary use and health benefits.

Reporting back that I've developed a bit of a Vidalia onion obsession, especially since my local market had them in stock when they were out of reds. I've learned to appreciate the more subtle and less in-your-face flavor of the Vidalia, especially in salads.

Vidalia and other sweet yellows. I use them for everything. The others are stronger than I like.

I love leeks. My husband makes the best chicken/leek/sun-dried tomato pasta dish.

I use all of the onions available here. For cooking, I prefer yellow onions and always keep them on hand. For salads, either white or red or green onion depends on the mood I am in. Just buy leeks and shallots occasionally.

Plain yellow onion, but happy with any. I just use them a bit differently in most cases. Sweet and Vidalia and red can be sliced thinly and used raw with discretion. The others I prefer to cook - and I do mostly buy yellow, since the price is right.

I love shallots and leeks - I slice finely and add at the end of cooking, and occasionally as a garnish when food is cooked.