Pickled onions help

I,m looking into doing some of my own onion pickling . Can anyone suggest onion varieties and a nice recipe for the brine and what type of vinegar please . Never done this before .

This is the very best and easiest recipe that I have found. I think it would work with any onion variety.  

Simple Pickled Red Onions Recipe (In Less Than 5 Minutes)

   1 medium size red onion
   1/2 cup (plus a little extra) white wine vinegar (or apple cider vinegar)
   1 teaspoon salt
   Optional: Other seasonings like 1 teaspoon chili powder or garlic powder for flavor

Instructions

   Thinly slice the onions, leaving them in rings for easy use.
   Carefully place the rings into a pint size jar and sprinkle with the salt and other seasonings.
   Pour the vinegar over the rings to fill the jar and put the lid on.
   Leave at room temperature for two hours so flavors can meld.
   Transfer to the refrigerator for up to two weeks (though ours are usually gone in a couple of days!)

https://wellnessmama.com/127248/pickled-red-onions-recipe/

Her explanation:

Pickled red onions provide all the flavor of fresh red onions, but have extra depth from their pickle-ing and will keep in the fridge for weeks! Even better- you can make them in only five minutes, or let your 5-year-old make them… it is that easy!  I keep these guys in the fridge at all times… you know, for pickled onion emergencies.

Ways to Use Pickled Red Onions:  On everything.

Want a little more direction? Try these:

   Beef Barbacoa– Pickled red onions are amazing on one of our favorite budget-friendly and time saving recipes: Beef Barbacoa. I cook this in a pressure cooker (I use this Instant Pot) in less than an hour for a delicious restaurant-quality dinner on a busy day.
   Salads– These spice up almost every salad.
   Breakfast– Great on almost any breakfast foods, but especially on quiche, eggs, or other savory foods.
   Tacos or Taco Meat– These are especially great on any kind of tacos or taco salad you can come up with!
   Burgers– Pickled red onions are a great addition to any burger.
   Charcuterie plate– Feeling really fancy? Add these to a charcuterie plate along with your favorite cured meats and cheeses.

If you would like to water bath can some pickled onions, I adapted a recipe from the Joy of Pickling from Linda Ziedrich:
1/4 cup pickling salt
1 quart water
1 1/2 lbs. red onions, sliced fairly thick
2 Tbsp. sugar, honey or sweetener of your choice
2 cups red wine vinegar, to continue the red color
1 tsp peppercorns
1/4 tsp. whole allspice
1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 bay leaf, torn in half

Soak the onions in the salt/water brine for 2 days, weighted to keep the onions submerged. Drain and rinse onions, layer them into 2 pint jars along with the peppercorns, allspice, red pepper flakes and bay leaf. Bring sugar and vinegar to a boil, pour over the onions. Seal immediately and water bath can for 10 minutes.

Very tasty and in a pinch you can rinse them and use them like other onions in a braise.

Thank you for the recipes  and the guidance. I,m looking forward to growing this year and having pickled onions with my fish and chips !!! can,t wait to try the process.

I am overwhelmed with multiplying onions and need to store/preserve them. I used vinegar canning but didnt care for the vinegar taste , i do see a tip here that they can be rinsed. I will try that.

Is vinegar needed? Can it be canned in water, no vinegar? I am fairly new to canning and unsure if vinegar is needed for a reason unknown to me.

If it helps, i hope to can a lot of salsa, but i need the onion space to grow the tomatoes.  Its crazy though. One onion turns into 100. I'd pull a clump,  harvest a  couple for a burger, then replant the rest individually. I have hundreds if not thousands of them. I even spread them outside my garden to see if they'd spread on their own.

Wayne - you can ferment them for pickled onions, which also increases the acidity. Onions are a low acid food, so to safely water bath can the acidity needs to be increased. Or just preserve onions in water, but this requires a pressure canner. This is the recipe I use - Preparing Canned Onions. A lot of my recipes start with "sweat off 1 onion for 20 minutes, using these canned onions allows you to skip that step. I can onions in half-pint jars as that's about 1 onion.

Thanks stacy. I do have a pressure canner. The recipe link is not working though.

Wayne - sorry about the link, I don't know what happened. It's on the dummies website. If you search pressure canning onions it comes up.

Hi Wayne,
I've done a bit of pickling over the years, but have moved away from canned vinegar-pickles, and towards fermented pickles. I've never fermented just onions though.

For canning, there are two choices. Either you have a fairly acidic product and then you can can it in a boiling water bath, so that's your vinegar-based pickles. I think for most neutral vegetables, a brine that is half commercial 5% vinegar and half water is safe. Or in order to can non-acid food safely, you have to do it in a pressure canner and/or for extreme lengths of time, and I've never done that.

Fermented pickles are great, and then you don't can them, you just keep them refrigerated or in a cool storage after they've fermented and produced their own acid.
We put sliced onions or green onions in our kimchi and it's a great addition but I have no idea about pickling onions on their own.

Another preservation method might be to try drying. Here in Ladakh, chives grow wild in the mountains, and people traditionally collect the greens, chop them up and then pound them a bit in the mortar and pestle, then form the pulp into little flat cakes that they dry. These dried chives are then fried like garlic at the beginning of cooking any meal; I think they are stronger in this dried form than they are fresh. This method might work nicely for your lush growth of green onions there.

I got the onions canned. Normally, these onions need no preservation. Just pick them when you need some.

If i can get them established outside my garden i will have it made from a real estate point of view.

In the UK, pickled onions means whole shallots in malt vinegar. Deeeeelish!!! Bung a dried chilli in for extra punch!