The Dice: Rough, Medium, Fine
Okay. You can slice now. Even pieces, no sawing, knuckles tucked. Dice is just slicing twice, basically, but let's not skip the steps because that's how you end up with seventeen different-sized pieces and one side of the onion diced into confetti.
Here's the honest version: nobody needs a fine dice for weeknight cooking. But you should know how to do rough, medium, and fine on purpose, not by accident, because the size of your dice actually changes how the food cooks and how it eats. Big rustic chunks for a soup you're simmering for an hour. Small even pieces for something that cooks fast or gets eaten raw, like pico. That's the whole game with dice — size is a choice, not a guess.
The three sizes, roughly
- Rough dice — about ¾ inch, doesn't have to be perfect. Great for stock, roasted veggies, anything with a long cook time where the pieces are going to break down some anyway.
- Medium dice — about ½ inch. This is your everyday size. Onions for a sauce, potatoes for a hash, celery and carrots for soup that isn't going to simmer for six hours.
- Fine dice — about ¼ inch or smaller. Pico de gallo, a garnish, anything that's staying raw or nearly raw where texture matters and nobody wants to bite into a big chunk of raw onion.
You don't need a ruler. Eyeball it. Consistency matters more than hitting an exact measurement — the goal is every piece roughly the same size so they cook at the same rate.
The actual technique
Take your onion (still the best practice vegetable, we've been over this). Cut it in half through the root, peel it, lay it flat side down.
- Horizontal cuts first. Guiding hand claw on top, knife tip stays near the root end without cutting all the way through it — the root is what's holding everything together so it doesn't fall apart on you. Make your horizontal slices parallel to the board, however many you need for the size dice you want. More cuts, smaller dice.
- Vertical cuts next. Same idea, straight down through the onion, parallel to each other, still leaving the root intact.
- Now slice across. This is where the dice actually happens — you're cutting across your grid and little cubes fall away as you go. Claw grip the whole time, guiding hand walking back as the onion gets smaller.
The root end is your scrap. You'll be left with a little nub you can't safely dice smaller. Don't be a hero about it. Toss it or save it for stock.
Your call, but I do rough and medium dice a lot faster than fine, and I'm not ashamed of that. Fine dice takes patience I don't always have, and that's fine. Cook the recipe you have, not the recipe a cooking show would make.
Where people go wrong
Rocking the knife too fast before the grid cuts are even. If your horizontal slices aren't parallel, your dice won't be even no matter how careful you are on the vertical cuts. Slow down on the setup, speed comes later, same as always.
Also — and I mean this — don't try to save every last sliver by cutting the tiny end pieces smaller and smaller with your fingers getting closer to the blade. That's exactly the kind of moment a dull knife or a rushed cut turns into a bad afternoon. Let the small stuff go.
A quick confession
I had a stretch a while back where I got real sick for about two weeks — one of my worse flares — and I'd left a huge chunk of a project half-finished right before it hit. Not cooking, a group thing for church, a poster we were all supposed to build together. I disappeared on my part completely. No texts, no updates, nothing.
When I came back around, the team had just quietly finished it without me. Nobody said anything mean. Nobody made it a whole thing. They just filled in the gap and kept going.
I was relieved and kind of mad at myself at the same time, which is a weird combo to sit with. But it taught me something that applies here too: things don't have to be perfect or finished by you alone to still turn out fine. Your dice doesn't have to be flawless. The soup still gets made. The team still finishes the poster. Give yourself the same grace you'd give somebody else's slightly uneven onion pieces.
Before next time
Dice one onion into medium dice and one into fine, just so your hands learn the difference in cut spacing. Take a picture of the pile before it goes in anything — you'll want to compare it to your first practice cuts a few lessons back.
~kaylee