Vidalia Onion Recipes Drive Smaller Onion Size, Researchers Say

Who wouldn’t agree that Georgia’s sweet Vidalia onions are wonderful?

Sometimes, though, there’s too much wonderful.

So University of Georgia researchers are working to reduce the size of Vidalias from softballs to, say, tennis balls.

 “I’ve always thought that if a slice was bigger than a piece of bread or a hamburger bun, it might be too big,” said Reid Torrance, coordinator of UGA’s Vidalia Onion and Vegetable Research Center in Toombs County.

"In the last couple of years, there's really been an effort to downsize," he said. "Unless you're eating a blooming onion, you don't want one that big."

Big as in the Colossal, an onion with a 4-inch diameter.

Smaller onions mark a reversal of eating habits from years gone by, when consumers wanted onions as big as their heads to deep fry, throw on the grill with a slab or meat or encase in aluminum foil and bake. Shoppers would happily fork over more dough for a big o.

Now, smaller onions--2 to 2 and half inches in diameter--are coming into their own, thanks in part to recipes on cooking shows and food websites, says Cliff Riner, UGA Extension coordinator for Tattnall County. A recipe will call for one large or two medium onions, so that’s what the market wants.

To meet the demand for these smaller onions takes knowledge and timing. If you yank an onion out of the field early, it won’t be as sweet as people expect a Vidalia to be.

The challenge is to slow the growth rate of the onion, so that it can fully ripen in the field before it becomes the size of a softball.

Farmers are working with UGA experts to try and figure out how to slow down the onions' growth, studying both onion varieties and growing conditions. They’ve tried different varieties, changed crop spacing and fertilization and irrigation methods to control the size of the onions.

Shoppers should start to see more medium-sized Vidalia onions in their produce departments soon. Thanks to an early spring and mild winter, some producers have already harvested most of their crop, but most are just starting to harvest.

There are 100 growers certified to grow Vidalia onions. They have about 12,000 acres planted to onions, and they produce 5 million 40-pound boxes of onions each season, according to the Vidalia Onion Committee.

The Vidalia onion crop is worth about $100 million, said Torrance.

Cooks looking for new ways to use Vidalia onions, large and small, can visit the onion committee’s website for inspiration and new recipes.