Shallots Are the Perfect Onion Alternative for One Person
Cooking as one person really means mastering portion control and learning to scale. One onion may not seem like too much onion, but a one-person recipe rarely requires a whole onion. Add shallots, which are naturally about half the size of an onion (or less) and are much better for cooking alone.
Like the greatAlexis Rose before me, I’m a bit of a bachelor, even when I’m not. On average, I share an apartment with another person about three days a week, which means that most of the time I cook and eat like a lonely person. I can’t tell you how many times I chopped half an onion for something, put the other half in a bag, and then put that bag in the refrigerator just to forget about it the next time I need half an onion. Sometimes I end up with two halves of an onion in my refrigerator at once, which pisses me off. This never happens with shallots, which, again, are about half an onion size, making them ideal for a small batch of something cooked for one or two people.
Yes, raw shallots have a sharper garlic flavor than regular onions, but I love those flavors and the shallots are quite sweet and bland when cooked. (I can’t remember many recipes that would get spoiled by swapped shallots, that’s what I’m talking about.) They can also be a little annoying to cook, but there is a workaround for that and you won’t have to deal with storing leftovers because there wo n’t be any residue, which is pretty elegant. And in the end, I am nothing more than a very elegant woman.