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What Are Scallions?

Question:

What are Scallions?

When a recipe calls for a scallion – is it the green or the white part? What can I substitute for scallions in a recipe?

Answer: Scallions are a member of the Allium species, which are edible plants that are “onion-like”. They have long hollow green leaves and a white root bulb which is not fully developed. Scallions often go by the name of green onions, green shallots, spring onions, salad onions, table onions, long onions, baby onions, precious onions, yard onions, onion sticks, gibbons, or syboes.

What Are Scallions

Scallions, except for the root, are completely edible. Both the long green stem and the white bulb can be eaten. The green leaves or shoots are often also called chives, although actual chives are actually round and much thinner than the scallion stem.

What Can I Substitute For A Scallion?

If a recipe calls for green onion or chive you can use the green leaves of the scallion. If a recipe calls for onion you can use the white bulbs. And vice-versa for both of these.

Can Scallions Be Re-grown?

The actual root of the scallion can be placed in water and new scallions will emerge from the root in about 5 days, changing the water every day. So, don’t throw away your scallion roots follow this process to grow more scallions. This process will actually work over and over again but the scallions will loose flavor and nutrients with each successive re-growth.

Simply cut the scallion near the root (about an inch).

Place it in a tall shot glass with water on your window ledge.

Change the water daily and watch how quickly it grows – this is only day 5!

Additional Information

See our shelf life page on onions to see how long scallions last.

To find out how long other foods are good for, please visit the Dairy, Drinks, Fruits, Grains, Proteins, Vegetables and Other sections of Eat By Date or use the search function below.