Onions are commonly chopped and used as an ingredient in various hearty warm dishes, and may

also be used as a main ingredient in their own right, for example in French onion soup, creamed
onions, and onion chutney. They are versatile and can be baked, boiled, braised, grilled, fried,
roasted, sautéed, or eaten raw in salads.[28] Their layered nature makes them easy to hollow out once
cooked, facilitating stuffing them, as in Turkish sogan-dolma.
Onions pickled in vinegar are eaten as a snack around the world, and as a side serving in pubs
and fish and chip shops throughout the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. They are part of a
traditional British pub's ploughman's lunch, usually served with crusty bread, English cheese,
and ale.
Similar to garlic,[29] onions can show an additional colour – pink-red – after cutting, an effect caused
by reactions of amino acids with sulfur compounds.[30]

Non-culinary uses[edit]

The large size of onion cells makes them useful for microscopy. These cells from the epidermis of a red onion
are naturally pigmented.

Onions have particularly large cells that are readily observed under low magnification. Forming a
single layer of cells, the bulb epidermis is easy to separate for educational, experimental,
and breeding purposes.[31][32] Onions are therefore commonly used in science education to teach the
use of a microscope for observing cell structure.[33]
Onions are toxic to dogs, cats, guinea pigs, and many other animals.[34][35]
Onion skins can be boiled to make an orange-brown dye. [