Yellow Onion

Most people think of yellow onion as a base ingredient. Something you cook into a sauce, never something you put on top of a bowl. I want to flip that. Yellow onion is one of the toppings I learned to use in Japan, and now I treat it the way ramen shops do. Cooked into the broth for sweetness, or raw on top for bite.

The version I have in mind is the bowl I had at Kappa 64 in Fussa, Tokyo. A tomato ramen with raw yellow onion across the top. The bite of the onion against the sweet tomato broth was the part I came home thinking about. It didn’t need anything else.

Why Yellow Onion Is Great for Instant Ramen

Yellow onion has the widest range of any onion. Raw, it’s sharp and a little spicy. Cooked, it turns sweet and round. Caramelized, it tastes like jam. The same onion, three completely different toppings, depending on how long you spend with it.

Ways to Add Yellow Onion to Instant Ramen

Boiled in the broth. Roughly chop a yellow onion into one to two inch pieces and drop them in when you turn the heat on for the water. By the time the noodles are cooked, the onion has softened and infused the broth with a quiet sweetness. The broth tastes like more was put into it than there actually was. This is my default for budget bowls like Maruchan or Top Ramen.

Diced and stirred in late. Smaller dice goes in during the last minute of cooking. The onion stays a little firmer, adds bite, and you get small sweet pieces in every couple of bites. Good for medium-bodied broths.

Raw, sliced thin, on top. The Tokyo move. Thinly slice raw yellow onion and lay it across the finished bowl. Sharper than red onion and a little less colorful, but the bite is real. Works on tomato-based bowls or sweet broths where the sharp contrast lifts the whole thing.

Caramelized. Slow-cook sliced onion in a pan with a little oil over low heat for thirty to forty minutes until deeply brown and soft. Drop a spoonful on top of a finished bowl. This is the version that turns a packet bowl into a kitchen bowl. Worth doing a big batch and freezing portions.

How to Serve It

While you can cook onion for your ramen, adding it raw is also a popular choice, as I often experienced in Japan. This Tomato Ramen Bowl I enjoyed there shows how the raw onion provides a refreshing bite against the flavorful tomato broth.

Pictured: Kappa 64 Restaurant 〒197-0005 Tokyo, Fussa Kitadenen, 1 Chome−６−9

My Instant Ramen Suggestions

• Maruchan Beef Flavor
• Sapporo Ichiban Beef Flavored
• Maruchan Creamy Chicken
• Itsuki Osaka Shoyu Tonkotsu
• Sanyo Foods Junren Sapporo Miso

Are you a raw onion person or a caramelized person? I want to know who’s loyal to which side.