Warning: That "quick" onion trick will wreck your knife edge

I saw someone on TikTok slicing onions in a microwave for 30 seconds to stop crying, tried it during prep last Tuesday, and my chef's knife chipped on the softened skin after 2 onions. The moisture does something to the blade edge that makes it brittle, now I'm back to a sharpening rod every hour and it's killing my flow. Has anyone else tried this or am I the only one who fell for it?

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victorhernandez11d ago

Wait, did you microwave the onions whole or cut them first? Because I had a totally different disaster with that trick, I put a whole onion in for the full 30 seconds and it exploded all over the microwave, took me an hour to scrape the bits off the ceiling and I swear the smell stuck to everything for a week. But about the chipping, that's wild, I always thought the moisture helped the blade slide through, not make it worse. My buddy used to freeze his onions for ten minutes before cutting and he swore by it, though he also cut his finger open once because the cold made his hand go numb. Honestly, maybe the real trick is just to wear goggles like a weirdo and skip the microwave entirely.