Essential Culinary Techniques

You're dicing an onion for a soffritto. The goal is uniform pieces so they cook at the same rate—recall how managing heat on the stovetop matters; uniform size matters just as much in prep.

Start with a whole onion. Slice it in half from root to tip, then lay the flat side down. This flat side is your anchor. Now make vertical cuts parallel to the board, stopping before you hit the root—that knob holds everything together and keeps your fingers safe. Then make horizontal cuts through the layers. Finally, slice across perpendicular to those vertical cuts. You get dice.

Julienne is thinner and longer. Cut the onion into planks first, stack them, then slice them into matchsticks. Same logic: create a flat, stable surface, then cut in one direction, then the other.

A chop is the casual version—rough, irregular pieces. No precision needed. Slice, turn the onion, slice again at angles. Speed over uniformity.

A slice is simplest. Rock the knife tip on the board, use the blade's length, and pull the onion toward the handle with each stroke. Thin, even pieces.

The pattern holds for every vegetable: stabilize it with a flat side, make parallel cuts in one direction, then cut perpendicular. Consistency comes from the same hand position and the same distance between cuts. That distance is what you control. Tighter cuts make smaller pieces. Wider cuts make larger ones.

Practice the onion until your pieces look the same size. Speed follows uniformity, not the other way around.