ONION FRITTATA
If you’re looking for a rustic and delicious dish, the onion frittata is the perfect choice to delight your palate! Onion, a versatile and aromatic ingredient, pairs perfectly with eggs, creating a flavorful and inviting frittata.
In this delightful recipe, the onions are thinly sliced and slowly sautéed in a pan until they become soft and sweet. Then, they are combined with beaten eggs, forming a creamy and flavorful mixture.
Additionally, the Onion Frittata can be served as a main course accompanied by a fresh salad or as an appetizer or second course. Its intense flavor and soft textures make this dish a culinary experience not to be missed.
Not only is the onion frittata incredibly tasty, but it’s also quick and easy to prepare: the perfect solution for an impromptu dinner or a meal full of authentic flavors without too much effort and at little cost.
Find out how to prepare this delightful frittata with onions and surprise your guests with a simple but flavorful dish!
If you love onion or egg-based dishes, also check out
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Very cheap
- Preparation time: 15 Minutes
- Portions: 4
- Cooking methods: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
- Energy 233.63 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 6.62 (g) of which sugars 2.65 (g)
- Proteins 18.68 (g)
- Fat 15.16 (g) of which saturated 6.61 (g)of which unsaturated 6.59 (g)
- Fibers 1.34 (g)
- Sodium 406.44 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 150 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients
The quantities are for a frittata for 4 people if you want to serve it as a main course accompanied by a salad. If instead you want to serve it as a second course, halve the quantities indicated below (all are divisible by two). You can omit the zucchini if you like.
- 6 onions (white or red)
- 1 zucchini (optional)
- 8 eggs
- 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
- extra virgin olive oil
- to taste salt
Tools
- Mandoline
- Pan
- Bowl
Introduction to Onion Frittata
This is a classic version of the onion frittata, with eggs, onions, and grated cheese to which I added a zucchini, but you can easily omit it. Additionally, this recipe can be flavored and enriched with other ingredients such as mushrooms, another vegetable (as I did), or for a more flavorful taste, diced bacon. You can also simply flavor it with herbs or spices like marjoram, parsley, or ground pepper. And now let’s see the steps for preparing the onion frittata
Clean the onions and slice them finely with a mandoline. If you’ve decided to add the zucchini, remove the ends and slice that finely too. Put a drizzle of olive oil in a pan, add the onions and zucchini, and cook until both are well browned. You may need to add a few tablespoons of water if the cooking base dries out too much.
Crack the eggs into a bowl, add the grated Parmesan cheese, a pinch of salt, and beat the mixture with a fork. Once the onions are cooked, add the egg mixture to the pan, lower the heat, and continue cooking for a few minutes with the lid on. When the frittata is cooked and nicely browned (check it by slightly lifting a border with the spoon), flip it with the help of the lid or a plate and finish cooking it on the other side. Here it is ready, this delicious frittata with golden onions and super tasty.
Variations and additions to the traditional onion frittata recipe
This is a classic and very simple version, with eggs, onions, and grated cheese. But it can be enriched and flavored with some other ingredient as I did by adding a zucchini or mushrooms. For an even tastier onion frittata, add diced bacon before wilting the onions. Alternatively, simply use herbs or spices like: thyme, marjoram, parsley, pepper.
ONION FRITTATA STORAGE
I recommend consuming the onion frittata immediately to fully enjoy its flavor. Alternatively, you can store it in the fridge in an airtight container for up to 2 days.
ORIGINS AND HISTORY OF THE ONION FRITTATA
Being eggs an inexpensive food that lends itself to a thousand preparations, the frittata is probably one of the widespread and ancient recipes. Obviously, there isn’t a single “inventor of the frittata” although it seems that the Arabs were the first to bring the frittata to Europe. Coming to today’s days, almost every European country has its own frittata recipe: in France, there’s the omelette (which remains creamier), in Spain the tortilla de patatas, in Austria the frittata is served in broth in the form of noodles, and then there’s us Italians for whom the frittata is a must, and you could say almost every family has its own recipe differing in execution and ingredients.
THE NUTRITIONAL BENEFITS OF ONION
There are many nutritional benefits of onion: it is antibacterial and anti-infective, activates all organic functions, and stimulates the functioning of the kidneys promoting the elimination of nitrogenous wastes. Onion is also particularly recommended for diabetics and those at cardiovascular risk.
TIPS FOR A PERFECT ONION FRITTATA
EGGS: Calculate about 2 medium eggs per person if you want to present this onion frittata as a main course, perhaps accompanied by a nice salad. If you present it as a second course, 1.5 eggs per person will be fine.
ONION: You can use the variety of onion you prefer, from the sweeter and milder red onion to the white one with its pungent and strong flavor. For this recipe, I chose Tropea onions for their intense taste, even spring onions can be fine, in this case include the green part too.
RECOMMENDED PAIRINGS AND ACCOMPANIMENTS WITH THE ONION FRITTATA
If we prepare it as a main dish for lunch or dinner, we can accompany it with a light lettuce or arugula salad. While if you consider it as a second course, you could precede it with a Fennel Velouté for an all-vegetarian menu.
CURIOSITIES ABOUT ONION FRITTATA
More than a curiosity about onion frittata, this is an explanation of a saying that refers more generally to the frittata. Do you know why it’s said “don’t flip the frittata”? Because if “making a frittata”, that is, a mess, is quite intuitive, the expression “don’t flip the frittata” isn’t as straightforward. The explanation is actually simple. When you cook a frittata, you should never flip it before the bottom part has solidified: this is a basic and important indication. In a symbolic way, it is used for people who have the incorrect ability to twist the original sense of a speech to their favor. And the saying is indeed a symbolic teaching: just as you shouldn’t flip the frittata, neither should the conversation.
