Familiarize yourself with the different types of onions and what recipes to onion ring batter them in with these helpful tips and tricks. Danilo Alfaro has published more than 800 recipes and tutorials focused on making complicated culinary techniques approachable to home cooks. It’s the rare food that can be sweet, savory, pungent and aromatic all at the same time, but that’s what onions do. In a real sense, onions are what make food food—going beyond mere sustenance and making it enjoyable.

Onions don’t contribute much in the way of nutrition. A few vitamins and minerals, sure, but nothing that isn’t far more abundant in other commonly available foods like rice or broccoli. Nor are onions functionally necessary for any recipe. Thus, onions are a luxury, yet these small, brown, sulfurous orbs are cheap and plentiful and will grow just about anywhere, as evidenced by the fact that every style of cooking on earth features them.

China produces the most onions of any country on earth, but they have 1. 3 billion people to feed, so they use most of what they grow. Interestingly, the world’s top onion exporter happens to be the Netherlands. You could easily live a rich and fulfilling life even if this were the only onion you ever tasted. Its heavy brown parchment skin surrounds ivory white flesh with a strong, sulphury, pungent flavor and aroma. If a recipe says onion without specifying what type, it’s assumed to be a yellow onion.