In this video, learn how to make Chef John’s Greek Beef Stuffed Onions, a flavorful and hearty dish perfect for dinner or a snack. Watch as Chef John guides you through the process of preparing sweet onions filled with a savory mixture of seasoned ground beef, herbs, and spices, all baked to perfection.
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00:00Hello, this is Chef John from FoodWishes.com, with Greek Beef Stuffed Onions.
00:08That's right, I've stuffed a lot of things, cabbage, peppers, squash, my face, but I've
00:15never stuffed onions.
00:17And what follows is what I thought was a very delicious first attempt.
00:20And to get started, the first thing I did was add half my ground beef to a skillet set
00:25over medium-high heat, in which I'd added a generous amount of olive oil.
00:30And I had two main goals here.
00:32One was to break the meat up into nice small crumbles.
00:35And then I also wanted to get a little bit of browning happening on the beef.
00:39And the reason I'm doing this with only half my meat is because I wanted to try something
00:42new.
00:43Okay, I usually prefer the texture of a stuffing when raw beef is used, but stuffings made
00:48with beef that's browned first actually do have more flavor, so I'm always torn between
00:52which way to go.
00:54So I decided to combine raw and cooked, just to see what would happen.
00:58And we will cover that later.
01:00But for now, once our beef is browned, we can go ahead and add some diced onion, along
01:04with some freshly ground black pepper, some salt, of course, followed by a few shakes
01:09of cayenne.
01:11And what we'll do is cook that stirring for a few minutes, until our onions start to turn
01:14translucent and maybe start to take on a little bit of golden brown color.
01:19And once things are looking a little something like this, we can toss in our next set of
01:22ingredients, which includes a whole bunch of minced garlic, a generous spoon of dried
01:27oregano, followed by a couple tablespoons of tomato paste.
01:31And what we want to do is stir all this together, and we will keep stirring until every piece
01:35of onion and crumble of beef is coated in that tomato paste, at which point we'll let
01:40it cook for a minute or two, or until our mixture looks like this.
01:44And once it does, we will stop and toss in some raw rice, which for me is basmati, but
01:49I think any long grain rice would work, or really any rice for that matter.
01:54And what we'll do is give that a thorough mix, since we want all those grains of rice
01:57to be coated with the olive oil, and that rendered beef fat, and any and all other goodness
02:02in the pan.
02:03And once we feel that's happened, we will stop and add a splash of red wine vinegar,
02:08as well as a cup or so of chicken broth, and we'll reduce our heat to medium.
02:13And then we will cook this stirring until our rice has absorbed all the liquid.
02:18And by the way, this part was also an experiment for me.
02:20OK, when I do things like cabbage rolls, I almost always use raw rice, since I want it
02:25to absorb the maximum amount of flavor from the other ingredients.
02:28But I noticed most of the other recipes for this called for cooked rice, or at least partially
02:33cooked rice, so I decided to give it a little bit of a head start here, which theoretically
02:38is going to make our stuffed onions take a little less time in the oven, although as
02:42you'll see and hear, they still took a very long time.
02:45But anyway, like I said, I cooked that until the liquid was absorbed, at which point I
02:49turned off the heat, so I could let this cool before adding it to the rest of the filling
02:53ingredients.
02:54And while we let that cool, let me go ahead and show you how to prep the onions.
02:58And for this, I think the best choice is some nice large yellow onions.
03:02And what we'll do is slice about an inch off each end.
03:05And once that's been accomplished, we will find the exact center of the onion, and with
03:09our point of the knife right there, we'll make one cut straight down.
03:13And you'll see very soon why this is one of the keys to the whole operation.
03:17And that's it.
03:18Once cut, we can pull off that papery outside layer, and then I went ahead and did three
03:21more exactly the same way, at which point I transferred those into a pot filled with
03:26some nice cold fresh water, which of course I had generously seasoned with salt.
03:31And what we'll do is bring that to a simmer on high heat, at which point we can back it
03:35down to medium low, where we'll maintain a nice steady simmer, and we will cook the onions
03:39for about 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the size, or until they soften up enough,
03:44where we can separate the layers.
03:47And since that is going to take a little bit of time, while we're waiting, we might as
03:51well finish our filling, which we will start by transferring our now cooled beef and rice
03:55mixture into a bowl, to which we will add the rest of our beef in its raw form.
04:00I also tossed in a little bit of crumbled Greek feta, which is not traditional, but
04:04I figured, how is that not going to be good?
04:07And then I finished up with a handful of freshly chopped herbs, and I went with the
04:11Greek holy trinity of parsley, oregano, and mint, at which point we'll take a spoon and
04:16give this a thorough mix.
04:18And if you thought rosemary was in the holy trinity of Greek herbs, no, that is actually
04:22part of the holy quartet.
04:24Although having said that, a little bit of rosemary in here would have been fine, so
04:27go ahead and add some if you want.
04:29I mean, you are after all the Zeus of your herb use.
04:33But either way, once that's mixed, we'll keep that in the fridge until we need it,
04:37and then we'll head back to the stove to check our onions, which like I said, we need soft
04:42enough to separate the layers, and I guess you could if you want poke these with a knife
04:46or test them with a skewer, but I could see separation happening, and they felt soft enough
04:51so I pulled them out.
04:52Oh, and then very important, do not discard the water, since what we'll do with that is
04:57transfer 4 cups into a saucepan, and along with a few cups of tomato sauce, and maybe
05:02some chicken bouillon paste.
05:04This will be the liquid we add to our baking dish, in which we're going to be cooking our
05:08stuffed onions.
05:10And all we need to do to this is bring it up to a simmer on high, and then reduce our
05:14heat to low, and keep it hot until we need it.
05:18And that's it, once our onions are cool enough to handle, we will pull out our filling and
05:22get to stuffing.
05:23And of course, the pieces in the center are probably going to be too small for this, but
05:27we can save that stuff to use in like a hundred other things.
05:31And then instinctively, I figured I should use the longest biggest pieces, which in hindsight
05:35might have been a mistake, because once I eventually transferred in a couple heaping
05:39tablespoons of our filling, and then rolled it up, because it overlapped itself, I ended
05:44up with like a double layer of onion, which I guess wasn't a big problem, but I do think
05:49that's a reason these took longer to cook than I thought.
05:52But also, and maybe more importantly, if you use nice big onions like I did, those big
05:56outer layers are going to be more fibrous, and even after cooking these for a really
06:00long time, after everything was tender, the surface of those outside pieces, believe it
06:05or not, actually retained a little bit of firmness.
06:08So what I'm trying to say is, you only need enough onion to cover the filling, and to
06:12do that we're probably better off using the middle pieces, which are going to be plenty
06:16long enough, and probably a little more tender.
06:20But anyway, like I said, this was my first time, so I knew going in I was going to learn
06:24a few things, and by learn a few things, I mean make a few mistakes.
06:29But anyway, eventually I ran out of filling, after rolling up 18, at which point I transferred
06:34those into my largest baking dish, and yes, as you can see, I ended up tearing up those
06:38inside pieces, and laying those in the bottom, for a little extra onion action.
06:43And that's it, we'll transfer in our cooking liquid, that we put together earlier, which
06:47I probably could have just poured in instead of ladling, but as usual, I was scared to
06:51mess up my perfect rows and columns.
06:54And then for whatever reason, I decided to transfer this onto a sheet pan, just in case
06:58anything bubbles over.
07:01Then after that, I placed over a piece of foil, since I think we want to cook this covered
07:05for at least the first hour.
07:07And that's it, I went ahead and transferred that into the center of a 375 degree oven,
07:13where we will cook it until our rice is perfectly tender.
07:16And like I said, I did the first hour covered, and then pulled out the foil, and I was thinking
07:21it would only take me like another 30 minutes uncovered, but I wasn't even close.
07:26Okay, my rice was not actually tender until after the 2 hour mark, at which point it looked
07:31like this, which I thought was totally worth the wait, since if you're asking me, these
07:36things are gorgeous.
07:37But to make them even more beautiful, and to give them a little bit of a glisten, I
07:41went ahead and drizzled these with olive oil, and then eventually finished them off with
07:45another pinch of herb.
07:47And after letting them rest for about 10 minutes, which was not easy, I went ahead and served
07:51one up and sliced in for the official taste.
07:54And yes, my 20 year old steak knife is super dull, but also as I mentioned earlier, the
07:59outside surface still retains a little bit of firmness, which didn't ruin anything.
08:04It just prevented me from getting that perfect slicing shot, where the knife goes through
08:08like a hot blade through butter.
08:11But anyway, 99% of the onion was sweet and tender, and very, very delicious, and the
08:16filling was absolutely outstanding.
08:19OK, I think my trick of browning half the meat really worked, which by the way is not
08:23really even an extra step, since we have to saute the onions and pre-cook the rice a little
08:27bit anyway.
08:28Speaking of which, to cut some cooking time down, next time I'll probably add more stock
08:33to the rice when we pre-cook it, so that it's actually starting to get tender when it goes
08:37into the stuffing, since while these really were phenomenal, 2 plus hours cooking time
08:42is a little much.
08:44But anyway, that's it.
08:45My take on Salon Turmasi, and unless I hear otherwise, I will assume I'm saying that wrong.
08:52But no matter how it's pronounced, I absolutely loved how these came out, and I'll finish
08:56up the video by serving up 3 in a bowl, which I think would be a perfect portion, and I
09:01used a nice sharp serrated knife, so I could get a decent cross-section, and as I take
09:06one last bite, let me finish up by saying, I really do hope you give these a try soon.
09:12So please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much
09:17more info as usual, and as always, enjoy!