What makes a cooking trend go viral on TikTok? Only the algorithm knows. Cottage cheese ice cream, is, uh, healthy (and less terrible than you'd think), while pickled Dr. Pepper is weird but disappointing. Tequila and apple juice tastes pretty meh, while cucumber salads are easy to make. The onion boil recipes that seem to be a 2024 TikTok trend at least fit into this last category. While the dish may not be the most exciting thing you've ever eaten, it's simple enough that just about anyone can make it.

The standard onion boil recipe seems to involve peeling a whole onion, then cutting out the core. The first mystery (there are two) is, how do you do this on-camera without tearing up and having to blow your nose multiple times? It probably helps if you use a sweet onion such as a Vidalia, since these have less pyruvic acid (which is the onion pain-maker). You then fill the core with melted butter and seasonings and wrap the onion in foil before baking it in the oven for about an hour. Yep, baking. The second mystery is, why is this called an onion boil if there's no boiling involved? Sorry, we have no answer for this, although if we had to guess, we'd say it's because the onion releases a lot of moisture so it essentially steams in its own juices.

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So, we've established that an onion boil is basically just a baked onion with seasoned butter. Most of the TikTokers making them seem to think they're the greatest thing since self-peeling onions, so perhaps they're not wrong. If you like onion soup, onion rings, and all things onion, there's a good chance you'll enjoy oven-steamed onions, as well. If you're not an onion super-fan, though, you might require a few extra ingredients to up the ante. Enter the cheesy onion boil -- it's the same thing, only right at the end, you top the onion with your grated cheese of choice and cook it for a few more minutes until the cheese melts.

Some people also like to pair their onion boils with boiled eggs. Presumably, these eggs are boiled in the traditional way, but as baked eggs are also a thing, there's no reason you couldn't just crack an egg into your onion core (you may have to expand the hole a bit) and bake it that way. An onion core can also be filled with other ingredients such as creamy sauces, seasoned ground meat, or rice. One Greek dish, salantourmasi, uses rice and tomatoes as a filling for baked onions, while Lebanese stuffed onions are filled with rice and ground lamb. We don't know exactly when either dish was created, but online recipes for both predate the TikTok era.

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