How to Store Onions So They Stay Fresh For Months
Stop your cryin’! Keep your onions fresh with some of our favorite tips on how to store them.
Sick of onions going bad before you use them all? Get our tips on how you should be storing onions so that they stay fresh for months. No more wasted onions!
When Are Vidalia Onions Available?
Vidalia onions come to maturity during shorter days than other onions. They’re grown as a winter crop with a harvest that begins in Spring and ends at the end of August. They’re therefore only available for a short time. And that short time is now! Because they’re only available for a short time, if you want to have them for awhile, and of course you do since they’re so sweet and good, then you need to store them properly to keep them dry and fresh.
So here’s what you need to do. You need to go to the grocery store and stock up on these sweet onion treats while they’re available.
Once you have your bags of onions in your house, then what do you do? No worries. I’ve got three tips for storing onions that will keep them fresh for a nice long time.
Tips For Storing Onions
These tips can be used for all kinds of onions whether you have Vidalias, yellow onions, or red onions.
Onion Storage Tip #1
One of the best places to store onions is in the refrigerator: Wrap each onion bulb individually in paper towels, which will help absorb moisture, and place them in the crisper with the vents closed. A few will naturally go bad, but many will keep for months. If you buy a big bag of Vidalia onions at the end of the season you should have them through the holidays. What a treat!
Onion Storage Tip #2
Store onions in the legs of clean, sheer pantyhose. Yes, really. This is a pretty cool trick.
What you do is tie a knot in between each onion. This keeps them separate from each other and lets air circulate around them so that they stay dry. Whenever you want to use an onion, cut above the next knot and pop one out. Hang your hose-strung onions in a cool, dry, well-ventilated area.
Onion Storage Tip #3
Don’t store onions with potatoes. It makes the onions go bad quicker.
There you are. Three great tips so that you can buy a whole whack of Vidalias now and keep enjoying them through the months ahead. Yum!
Onion Recipes
Now that you’re able to keep them from going bad, how are you going to use all those delicious onions? Try these recipes with onion.
Disclosure: This post is sponsored by the Vidalia Onion Committee. All opinions are ours and honest.
This post originally appeared in August 2016 and was revised and republished in February 2025.
I’ve been storing Vidalia Onions in stockings for years. I wouldn’t trust any other way.
Thanks for sharing, Walt!
How to Keep Purple Onions Fresh for Months as well?
Good to know about onions, I’ve always had a problem with them spoiling!
Thinking about onions, just as well as having making your face “pucker” by eating them. But, it is well for what your doing!
Thanks
I buy my onions in the frozen food isle. I don’t see any difference in the taste and no more tears.
Thank you Christine.
I love onions but they have not always loved me. Lol, I will try the first tip. I have recently been craving these nutrient packed babies.
😊🙏🏻❤️
Hope this helps you out, Kim!
I totally love these onions!
I haven’t been able to find them here in Houston Texas for some time…WHY?
As they are usually available up to Labor Day.
Thx
H.M. Johnson
That is strange, they should be available most places this time of year! Maybe you can ask your local store why they aren’t carrying them anymore.
THANKS FOR THE GREAT INFORMATION. 🙂
You’re welcome, Sharry!
Love the strawberry onions we get from the fields—great onions! Just a heads up for anyone form the north taking fresh onions home . My neighbor bought a large bag to bring home to Buffalo NY, Apparently he didn’t dry them enough and by the time he got to Georgia, he had to stop and through them all out at a rest area. Seems the onion vapors were so strong they were burning his and his wifes eyes. Just a heads up for anyone thinking of transporting fresh onions,
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Thanks for sharing with us, Roger!