📌 Quick Summary: Growing & Using Giant Sweet Onions
- 🧅 The Giant Onion Appeal: Growing colossal sweet onions (like the ‘Exhibition’ variety) takes patience, but the payoff is huge. When you need 3 lbs of onions for a canning recipe, you only have to peel two bulbs!
- ⚖️ Alternatives to Exhibition: If you want giant onions that store a bit longer, growers recommend Globo or Candy. They are slightly denser, less juicy, and a bit more pungent, but will easily store until mid-winter.
- 🥒 The Short Shelf Life Fix: Because giant sweet onions have high water content, they don’t store well long-term. Our community uses them primarily for summer canning, zucchini caviar, or quick pickling.
- 🧄 Garlic Oil Pickling Recipe: Slice the sweet onions into thick rings, add salt, sugar, and vinegar. Heat cooking oil in a pan, fry minced garlic in it, and pour the hot garlic oil over the raw onions. Mix and refrigerate for 24 hours.
Luda, hello! I came here to say a massive thank you. Thanks to your blog post about the Exhibition onion, I finally managed to grow it! It took me three tries. Thank you so much for the advice and help, your blog is incredibly informative.
I just wanted to show off my harvest photos here. I had so much fun pulling these out of the ground today!
OlchikD wrote:
I had so much fun pulling these out of the ground today!
They look amazing! The best part is when you need 3.3 lbs (1.5 kg) of onions for a salad or a batch of zucchini caviar… you just peel two onions and you’re done! Saves so much hassle. Excellent result.
I plant Exhibition specifically for my summer canning projects.
OlchikD wrote:
Thanks to your blog post about the Exhibition onion, I finally managed to grow it!
Olya! Those are beautiful!!! I didn’t grow Exhibition this year, and I kind of regret it. I relied on some other varieties, but none of them turned out as massive and juicy as Exhibition.
Aleksan9ra wrote:
…none of them turned out as massive and juicy as Exhibition.
Luda, could the Globo variety be a good alternative to Exhibition?
I’m not thrilled with some of the commercial seed packets I bought this year. I’m only keeping the Yalta Red (a flat red onion). It is gorgeous this year—large, dark, and flat. I wish I actually ate them raw, but I don’t eat raw onions so I can’t speak for the taste.
I’m definitely keeping Exhibition, and I’ll plant a little bit of Globo if I can find the seeds. I also really liked the Candy variety. The bulbs are uniform, larger than average, they matured perfectly, the necks dried down thin on their own, and I hear they store really well.
I’m also moving towards shallots. I put myself on Natasha’s waiting list for the ‘Vitan’ shallot. It’s a proven, medium-sized variety, not tiny like most of them.
natko wrote:
I plant Exhibition specifically for my summer canning projects.
Yes, exactly! I don’t eat raw onions either. I’ve been pulling my Exhibition onions little by little and quick-pickling them for my husband or tossing them into my canning recipes. I washed these big ones specifically to pickle them alongside some tomatoes. I still want to find a good recipe for canning pickled onions for the winter. Haven’t gotten around to it yet.
natko wrote:
Luda, could the Globo variety be a good alternative to Exhibition?
Natasha, Globo is almost exactly like Candy – it is denser, less juicy, slightly more pungent, and it stores well just like Candy (usually until the New Year).
One year I grew a Dutch white sweet onion that was incredibly similar to Exhibition. It was just like it: huge, juicy, very mild, but it could actually store for a while in the pantry. And no matter how hard I searched later, I couldn’t find those seeds again.
OlchikD wrote:
I still want to find a good recipe for canning pickled onions for the winter.
Olya, we used to have a user named Vitaly on the forum. He shared a ridiculously good recipe for pickled onions once. True, it’s not for winter canning, but it will easily keep in the fridge for a while (if it doesn’t get eaten immediately). Exhibition onions are perfect for this.
Here is the recipe:
Slice the onions into thick rings, salt them, add sugar and a splash of vinegar, and mix. Heat some cooking oil in a frying pan, toss in finely minced garlic, quickly fry it, and pour the boiling garlic oil directly over the raw onions. Mix well and put it in the fridge for 24 hours to marinate.
👨🔬 Editor’s Botanical Note: Exhibition & Giant Sweet Onions
The Exhibition onion mentioned frequently by our growers is a legendary, colossal sweet onion variety originally bred in the Netherlands/UK, capable of reaching 2-5 lbs per bulb. It is prized for its extreme juiciness and zero-heat, tear-free flavor.
In North America, growers often achieve similar results using giant sweet varieties like Ailsa Craig, Walla Walla Sweet, or Kelsae Sweet Giant.
The Catch: All giant sweet onions share one flaw—they have high water content and low sulfur levels. This makes them incredibly delicious raw, but it also means they have a very short shelf life. They will rot quickly in a root cellar! As our forum members noted, it is best to use them up by late autumn, or process them immediately through summer canning and pickling. If you want a sweet onion that stores longer (like Candy or Globo), you will have to sacrifice a bit of size and juiciness.
