Easy Turkish Sumac Onions Recipe (Turkish Onion Salad) (2024)

FAQs

What are sumac onions? ›

Turkish sumac onions are sliced red onions marinated in sumac, along with oil and something acidic, in this case red wine vinegar. This softens the taste and texture of the onions. They are served in the Middle East as a side dish or condiment.

This easy popular Turkish salad called piyaz, or more accurately fasulye piayzi, is made with simple ingredients including white beans, tomatoes, onions, parsley and garlic. A light vinaigrette with fresh lemon juice and a good dash of sumac brings this satisfying white bean salad together. Ready in 10 minutes or less.

Submerge Them in Cold Water

Submerging them in cold water takes away that intense, sharp bite from the raw onion. The cold water helps the enzyme that causes onions to have their pungent flavor to leach out. Similarly, storing onions in the refrigerator will help mellow them out when you go to use them.

You can get rid of the strong taste by soaking sliced onions in ice water for 20 to 30 minutes or by sprinkling them with an acid such as vinegar. Onions soaked in ice water will get very crisp while those sprinkled with vinegar will soften a bit, but they will lose the strong taste and become sweeter.

This deep red spice is the main flavor maker in some traditional Middle Eastern dishes like fattoush salad and musakhan, but it is a versatile spice that can add depth and tang to many things including chicken, fish, and all sorts of salads!

Ground sumac is most often used in Turkish seasoning and Arabic spices, ground sumac spice is simply the tangy, citrusy powder from the fruit of the sumac shrub. It is preferred to lemon, tamarind and vinegar for its fresh, zesty flavor.

Common ingredients used in Turkish cooking include lamb, beef, eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, and various herbs and spices such as parsley, mint, cumin, and sumac.

Both the Greeks and the Turks make tasty salads from a variety of raw fresh vegetables; the Greeks may add Feta cheese, while the Turks may spice it up with peppers.

Tomatoes, eggplants, onions, zucchini, cucumber and garlic are the main vegetables found in Turkish cooking. They're used in everything from dips and salads to fritters and casseroles. Eggplants and zucchini are also often stuffed and grilled. in sauces and pilavs.

Red Onions: The salad onion. While you can cook with it, it's less overpowering than white or yellow onions, making it ideal for uses that require raw onion. The colour fades as you cook them. Great for Greek salad, on burgers, etc.

What does vinegar do to onions? ›

Then you just have to wait long enough for the vinegar to do its job, rinsing away the harsh sulfurous compounds, softening the onion, and giving it a pleasantly tart pop of flavor. If you use red wine vinegar, my personal favorite, the onions also turn an amazing hot-pink color.

Wait 10 minutes, then serve. The salt softens the onion's fibrous texture and mellows the sharpness of their flavor. There are other ways to tame raw onion, of course. You could soak slices in lemon juice for 20 minutes, which lends a slightly pickled flavor, as in this Tomato and Herb Salad with Sumac.

And adding sugar will make your onions sweeter. So if sweetness is what you're going for, do it my friends! I personally don't add any sugar to my onions. While I love sweetness as much as the next kid, the extra sugar makes the caramelized onions more one noted in my opinion.

Just peel and slice the red onion as called for in your recipe, then submerge them in a bowl of cold or ice water. Let them sit for at least ten minutes, stirring once or twice, before draining and using them in your recipe. For added flavor, you can also soak the onions in lime juice, lemon juice, or vinegar.

The flavor of sumac can be likened to the tang of fresh-squeezed lemon juice; it's tart and sharp, but also contains a hint of sweetness, along with lingering floral notes. “It's a subtle tang with some fruitiness that you wouldn't get from lemon juice,” says food blogger Amina Al-Saigh.

Sumac has a fruity flavor almost like lemon. The sourness can balance the acidity of a dish.

Made from dried berries, sumac is a versatile spice that complements a great range of dishes. Find out how to buy the best, plus our top recipe suggestions.