The Iconic Seafood Dish You Shouldn't Put Onions In

Onion imparts a lot of taste to mellow seafood dishes, making it one of the more common ingredients in tons of recipes. But paella breaks a lot of rules to achieve its one-of-a-kind texture and flavor, and adding onions to it can actually cause more problems than the flavor boost is worth.

Preparing paella is more like baking than cooking and requires very careful measuring of every last ingredient. If you accidentally add too much moisture, you'll either have to overcook the dish and make it mushy or just serve it as soup. Like many crisp, juicy vegetables, onions are mostly water. Most of the time, this is no problem, as sauteeing them removes excess moisture and adding them raw to soups and stews only enhances the broth. But since this dish is all about the rice, you should avoid anything that could potentially compromise it.

While most paella recipes call for water, stock, or other liquids, paella should always end up as a "dry" dish, preferably with a crunchy, golden bottom called a "socarrat." Exact, measurable quantities of liquid are easy to work with, but guessing how much moisture onions will release makes achieving this exponentially harder. That's one reason you should never rinse your rice for paella — to get an extra boost of starch. But even that may not be enough to compensate, especially when there are so many other ways to add more taste.

Aside from their distinct flavor, onions often add heartiness to dishes once they've been properly sauteed and caramelized. However, this is easily replicated throughout the various steps of the dish.

Many of the vegetable secret ingredients you should use in paella are either a bit firm, like green beans and root vegetables, or have durable skins, like peppers. That allows you to thoroughly saute them so they develop golden, roasted flavor and hues but won't become mushy when they simmer with the rice and proteins. All that flavor infuses the stock and contributes just as much heartiness as any onion, especially once they create all those lovely crunchy bits you deglaze from the pan. 

One of the things that makes paella one of the Spanish dishes to try is its reliance on whole proteins. Great batches don't shy away from including shrimp and mussel shells, chicken bones, and other sources of flavor and collagen because they give the rice so much taste to soak up. Since paella is considered more of a casual meal, don't feel self-conscious about peeling shrimp at the table once they're cooked. While it may be a bit messier, you can find so much flavor in the shells of shellfish, and they can be a great seasoning in their own right.