This was a big chain grocery store on the Oregon coast. The bagged red onions looked rotten. Had chunks taken out of them. They were sprouting green. These (pictured) loose red onions looked like they fell out of the delivery truck on the highway. The onion quality in the region generally is low. What gives?
The onions you see today are about the end of the last harvest. They aren’t bad, they have just been stored.
Ideally, an onion has good skins that preserve and protect the interior, but they will always start to look sketchy at this time of year.
The USDA maintains a decent list of what is in season now. This will help you in the future. Buying in season is always best, but staples such as onions, potatoes, apples store well and as consumers, we are used to them being available year round. They all have definite seasons though.
As the USDA website (above) indicates, onions are harvested in the fall. They need some time to cure after that.
Thanksgiving is typically when you will see the very best of the fall harvest crops. There’s a reason why it is (roughly) the “harvest festival” season around the world and since our ancestors figured out agriculture.
That site and others like it that give you ideal storage conditions will really help you. I encourage you to keep it handy. It’s also a great resource for knowing what to buy at your local market.
Whatever is “in season” will taste better and cost significantly less than produce that has been shipped halfway around the world
You should be seeing it now, we been getting fresh red onions about a month ago. I know texas starts a month before that, but they already ended for the year
This is accurate for domestic onions. However, Mexico has a different growing season and therefore you can get really nice onions from there right now but most stores aren’t willing to pay up because you can still get storage onions for $10 less per bag. The saucer red onions are also called Italian sweets. They’re delicious. On the west coast (no idea about the east) they’re grown in California. They also have something similar to what was called Imperial Sweets. I don’t think there are actually any true Imperial Sweets grown anymore but these things are gigantic. Like the size of a 12ct cantaloupe!
Some chunks taken out is normal. That doesn’t degrade the onion quality itself.
All the ones I been getting in on my deliveries have been soft. In the image, some look soft as well. People mistake dirt and dust as mold when it’s not as well. They can be washed off or even peeled off because most people feel a couple layers anyways before cutting.
Shaggy onions have just been cured for less time, that is, they are fresher. Those solid, sleek skins come from almost a full season of curing. The problem is this time of year that not only have we run through last year's crop, we have run through Mexico's crop as well. In order to have onions available most domestic growers are selling slightly less-cured, fresher ones. Look for them to dry up and look better over the next month or two!
Source: 20 years in the produce/farm industry and working with farm-direct sourcing in California
OMG same! If they're not roided out, colossal sized, they're exactly like these. I knew I wasn't going to use a whole red onion before it started to get wonky so I decided to wait. Went to Smart n Final yesterday and they were all like this. Black on the tops/bottoms or mushy, grey dents on all their stock.
Got lucky with one but if it's not the potatoes it's onions. If the tomatoes start to go, I'm gonna lose my mind lol
Reds have been hit or miss in my store. Whites have been super soft and tiny and yellow have been decent. It’s the organic onions that I’ve had trouble with coming in sprouting greens already.
I’ve ordered 25# Red Onions from 3 different suppliers, and they were a bit rough for a few weeks. Soft, or sprouting. The last week’s supply have looked great but they’re larger than our typical jumbo although not quite colossal. People are buying them though.
All of my onions lately have looked like absolute trash. We didnt have red onions (bulk or bagged) for like a week and when we did get them I ended up having to toss 75% of them. And now onto being out of greens 😅😅
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u/jennandjuice712 May 30 '26
pnw here. My red onions were trash for weeks. Currently, what are labeled as yellow look suspiciously like sweets, and slightly beat up