Onion is quite a popular vegetable that we use in cooking almost daily.
We add it to salads and fry with veggies, onion circles fit meat dishes exceptionally well, and of course, let’s not forget about marinated onions (though rather few of us truly enjoy those!).
However, when working with onions in the kitchen, everyone faces the same issue: that heavy odor that tends to spread all around the house in a couple of minutes!
And naturally, onion lovers want to know how they can remove that onion smell in their houses without refusing to use this veggie at all.
So today, we are going to tell you more about this. You will find out what to do if your entire house smells like onions.
In particular, we will provide you with a few alternative methods that can be used for getting rid of that odor. In addition, you will learn how you can wash this smell from your hands if it gets there as well.
How to Get Onion Smell Out Of Your House?
Onion is not just a versatile vegetable in cooking. Yes, we can use it in quite many dishes, from salads to stews and even fried potatoes.
But also, onions are very healthy. This vegetable is filled with useful vitamins and it is very beneficial for your immune system and overall health.
However, once you start cooking it, you face another issue that has nothing to do with all the positive features that onions have! How to get rid of onion smell after it spreads all around your house?
And what shall you do if your hands get smelly because you cut onions without wearing protective gloves?!
First of all, no panic here! Onion is not like chili pepper which starts burning your skin once it gets there, so you can survive that onion smell for a little while. And second, below you will find a detailed description of a few methods that can help you to deal with this issue easily.
Boil Some Cinnamon Sticks
You probably have used cinnamon sticks only when making gluhwein before, but in fact, they can also serve you as a great anti-onion odor remover! Removing the onion smell in your house with the help of cinnamon sticks looks like this.
- First of all, you will need two or three fresh cinnamon sticks. If you already have them at home, but they have been stored on your kitchen shelf for months, you’d better buy new ones, luckily, these sticks are pretty cheap.
- Once you get the sticks, take a pot with water, place your sticks there, and put that water on high heat.
- Bring it to a boil and let the cinnamon sticks boil like this for a while. They will be releasing a pleasant cinnamon scent while being boiled, and that scent will replace the heavy onion odor.
Only make sure that you keep an eye on the boiling pot! You want to keep plenty of water in your pot so it doesn’t burn and cause more unpleasant smells in your kitchen.
Slow Cook Some Baking Soda
Another method you can use for getting rid of a strong onion smell in your house is to make use of baking soda. This is cheap and very effective. All you need to do is to take a few tablespoons of baking soda and combine it with a generous amount of water in a slow cooker.
Turn the slow cooker to low heat and leave the top off. While being heated slowly, your baking soda mixture will help pull the onion odors from the air both in your kitchen and around the house.
In addition, except for eliminating odors only, this method can also be used as an air freshener. With the baking soda as a base ingredient, try adding a few drops of vanilla, a few teaspoons of your favorite spices such as cinnamon or clove, some essential oils, or a few slices of lemon.
In this case, the baking soda will still eliminate the smell and other ingredients will replace the smell of onion (or any other unpleasant odor) with a new and pleasant fragrance.
Use Lemon Water
To make this anti-onion remedy, you will need to simmer lemon.
Take a lemon, slice it not too thin and not too thick, and put the citrus slices into a pot full of water. You need to bring the pot to a boil and then reduce the heat to medium low. Like this, you will simmer the lemon water by making the acid in lemon slices pull the onion odor out of the air and fill your house with fresh and pleasant citrus scent.
By the way, you can easily replace lemons with limes or even oranges in case you don’t like the smell of lemons exactly.
Or you can even mix all three! And of course, make sure that you keep an eye on the citrus water while it is boiling to prevent it from burning!
Bake Cookies!
Why not?! Cookies smell very good, and there are plenty of recipes that don’t require many ingredients or a long baking time. And their pleasant smell will easily replace the heavy onion odor for sure. In fact, it may not be exactly the cookies: a cake or muffins will also do!
Try Out Vinegar And Vanilla
To get rid of the heavy onion smell in your kitchen and in your entire house, there is another method that can become handy.
Even before you start chopping your onions, remember to mix some white vinegar with a teaspoon of vanilla extract.
Then just keep this mixture next to your cutting board or work area while you cut the onion. The mixture can help soak up the smell coming from the onion and keep it from making your entire kitchen smell.
Burn Scented Candles
We use these candles for making our home smell better, but in fact, they can also work as a good onion smell remover! We would recommend you use candles that have a citrus or vanilla scent since these smells remove onion odor better.
Just light the candle and leave it to burn for a while after you are done with chopping onions.
So, now you know how to fight and defeat onion odor that spread around your kitchen and maybe even around your house.
As you can see, all these methods are very easy and cheap, besides, all of them use ingredients that all of us have at home.
It means that you won’t have any problems with getting rid of onion odor in your house. But what about your hands?
How to Remove Onion Smell From Your Hands?
First of all, we find it necessary to remind you that, if you don’t want to get soaked with onion smell after cooking, you should be wearing special protective gloves that are designed for cooking exactly.
However, if you didn’t have them or you forgot about this nuance, and now your hands stink like onions, you can make use of one of the following methods to remove it from your skin and hands.
Rub Salt Into Your Hands
To do this, you need to take about a palm-full of coarse salt. Wet your hands slightly with warm water, and then just rub that salt all around the areas that smell. Then, rinse your hands with warm water. This should help draw the odor out of your skin.
You can also add a bit of lemon or lime juice to the salt (simply squeeze some citrus juice into it).
It will help you reduce the onion odor and leave your hands smelling citrus fresh!
Use Baking Soda For Cleaning Your Skin
Yep, it’s baking soda again!
Quite a versatile stuff, as you can see!
To get rid of onion odor on your hands, just mix some baking soda with a small amount of water to form a paste-like consistency.
Then rub this baking soda paste into your hands, gently scrubbing the most odorous areas. Rinse and dry your hands well.
Coffee Grounds As Hand Wash
We bet that quite few of you folks have heard of this method, but it really exists and moreover, it works! If your hands stink with onion after cooking, try using coffee grounds to wash them. Fill your hands with a generous amount of used coffee grounds and slightly wet your hands.
Then, wash your hands with the grounds like you would with soap. Rinse and dry your hands. Not only can this help reduce the smell of onions, your hands will smell delicious like coffee.
Try Using White Vinegar
Vinegar may not have the most adorable scent in the world, but it does help to deal with onion stinky smell effectively. Take a small amount of vinegar. Rub it into the skin that smells like onions. Rinse your hands under hot water and dry them.
The acid in the vinegar can help draw out the odor in your hands.
Of course, your hands will be smelling like vinegar after that, but the good news is that this scent will disappear way faster than the heavy onion odor!
Apply Dry Mustard
Dry mustard powder is not only a seasoning, but it’s also a good onion smell remover. Sprinkle dry mustard into the palm of your hand. Wet the area, mixing water with the mustard to make a paste. Rub it on your hands.
Rinse and dry your hands. The components in the mustard can help draw out the scent in your hands.
Also, we would like to pay your attention to the important nuance: please, make sure that the right kind of mustard is used! Don’t use a dried clump of bottled mustard.
The kind of mustard you want is dry mustard, a yellow powder that is used in many recipes. It can be found with spices in most grocery stores.
Rub Your Hands With Stainless Steel
Sounds crazy, you may say! But it works. To remove onion odor from your hands, wash them with warm water and keep on rubbing them with a curved side of a stainless steel spoon while you are washing them. The sulfur in your spoon will help to eliminate the smell.
Use Your Toothpaste
The last but not least method that can help you deal with the stinky onion odor on your hands.
Toothpaste often has baking soda and other odor-fighting ingredients. This is why it helps eliminate bad breath caused by onions and it may be helpful when dealing with the smells on your hands as well.
Just squeeze a dollop of toothpaste (about a pea size!) in your palm and rub it into the stinky areas of your hands. Rinse and dry your hands.
So, this is what you can use in order to free your hands from this annoying and stinky onion odor. Just like eliminating it in your house, dealing with the onion smell on your hands is simple and requires only the simplest ingredients.
Besides, it won’t take you much time which is definitely a benefit.
In addition, all of these methods can also be used for removing onion odor from your tableware and plates, as well as cutting boards.
But regarding the latter ones, we would recommend you have a separate cutting board for onion and garlic so that these smelly veggies won’t transfer their smell onto other food you are going to cook.
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