Meet Tearless Onions, and Say Goodbye to Crying Over Your Cutting Board

Onions are a staple in cooking, there's no getting around it. And believe me, I've tried. Because—as someone with sensitive eyes—chopping, slicing, and dicing onions is the most dreaded of tasks. There are many methods out there for mitigating onion tears but those that work are few and far between. So when I saw the words "tearless onions" on a bag at the grocery store the other day, I couldn't snag it quickly enough. But do these so-called tearless onions actually deliver? I tested to find out.

What Are Tearless Onions?

The store brand of tearless onions I found the other day was actually not the first time I've heard of such a thing—though they aren't always available. Months can pass where I forget to even look because of their seasonality.

The original onion to boast such a feat was produced by Bayer's Crop Science division after three decades of research and introduced as "Sunions" a few years ago. According to the brand's site, "Sunions, America’s first tearless and sweet onion, are a game-changer in the kitchen—no goggles or crazy hacks are needed to keep from crying."

Tearless onions are not genetically modified, but instead are the result of natural cross-breeding to mellow out the volatile onion compounds (sulfenic acids, aka, syn-propanethial-S-oxide) responsible for our body's natural defense mechanism (tears to protect the eyes). The process yields sweeter, less pungent-tasting onions, as well.

Do Tearless Onions Actually Work As Promised?

Now let's get down to brass tacks. Do tearless onions live up to their name? The short answer is a resounding yes for me. Here's my full review.

To give these beauties a full shake down, I decided to slice up nearly the whole bag (of eight onions) and make caramelized onions. I kept a couple aside and stuck them in the fridge to see if chilling them—my normal tear-free onion-cutting trick—would help even more.

On a scale of 1 to 10 in waterworks, if typical onions are a 10 for me, then these are a 0 to 1 (no tears) after slicing the first bulb, and only reaching about a 2.5 after finishing up the six I used. I got a little sting in the middle but nothing so serious that I had to walk away from my cutting board to get a tissue like with other types of alliums. The next day, I sliced the refrigerated leftovers with similar tear-free results for pickled onions on Taco Tuesday.

Not only do they prevent burning and sobbing, but these magical bulbs have a delicious, mellow, sweet flavor to boot. While some may comment that this variety of onion has been stripped of all its unique, pungent flavor, that's kind of the reason I like them so much. I've never been a fan of an overpowering onion drowning out other flavors or of that lingering aftertaste, so these are right up my alley. I might even add them raw to guacamole and pico de gallo or sandwiches and burgers.

The Bottom Line

If you need to cut up a whole bagful for caramelized onions or French onion soup, this is the variety to go with. They're available seasonally from late fall through spring, though that may depend on supply and location. I have seen them at several of my neighborhood grocery stores and they've even been spotted at Costco—so keep your eyes peeled and give them a try.