If you walk into a Panamanian kitchen, there is a good chance you will find onions. They may be sitting in a basket beside potatoes and garlic, tucked into a cupboard, waiting to become part of lunch, or already chopped and sizzling in a pan. The onion is so ordinary that it can be easy for a visitor to overlook it, but in Panama it is one of those ingredients that quietly appears everywhere. It isn't necessarily the star of the dish. Instead, it is one of the ingredients that makes so many other foods taste like home.
The importance of onions in Panama is reflected in just how much of the vegetable the country consumes. Panama's Ministry of Agricultural Development has described onions as a product of high national consumption, estimating consumption at around 50,000 quintales per month in 2024. During the December holiday season, consumption can climb to approximately 55,000–60,000 quintales per month. A Panamanian agricultural market study also found that onion is among the vegetables consumed most frequently, with at least 49% of surveyed consumers reporting eating it daily. That is an extraordinary amount of onion for a country where the vegetable often plays a supporting role rather than appearing as the main attraction.
The beginning of so many Panamanian meals
One of the reasons onions are so important is their role in sofrito and other seasoning bases. In many Panamanian households, onion is combined with garlic, tomato, peppers, culantro, ají dulce and other aromatics before the main ingredients are added. A traditional Panamanian sofrito recipe described by El Siglo begins with onion, garlic, tomatoes, peppers, cebollina, parsley, culantro and ajíes, creating a flavourful base for meats and other dishes.
This is the sort of preparation that a traveller might never notice. You order a plate of chicken, rice, stew or beans, and the food simply tastes rich and savoury. But underneath that flavour may be a humble onion that has been slowly cooked with other aromatics.
The onion isn't necessarily meant to taste strongly of onion.
Its job is to make everything else taste better.
Onion and garlic: a fundamental partnership
If there is one ingredient that seems almost inseparable from onion in Panamanian cooking, it is garlic. Panamanian culinary sources specifically point to onion and garlic as widely used for preparing different kinds of meat.
Together they create one of the simplest flavour combinations in the kitchen. Chop them, put them into hot oil, let them soften and release their aromas, and suddenly the kitchen smells completely different.
Add tomato, pepper, culantro or ají dulce and you've created a foundation that can go in countless directions.
This is why a bag of onions in a Panamanian household isn't merely another vegetable purchase.
It is a flavour-building tool.
The onion appears in everyday cooking
Panamanian cuisine is incredibly diverse because the country brings together Indigenous, African, Afro-Caribbean, Spanish and other culinary influences. There are coastal seafood dishes, rice dishes, soups, stews, meat dishes, Caribbean preparations and countless regional variations.
Onions fit into almost all of them.
They can be cooked into soups, chopped into stews, sautéed with meat, added to rice, incorporated into sauces, mixed into salads or eaten raw.
Panama's agricultural authorities describe onions as one of the principal ingredients in Panamanian cooking and note that they are used fresh in salads, in pickles, sauces and numerous other dishes.
That's the fascinating thing about the onion.
It doesn't belong to one particular dish.
It belongs to the kitchen itself.
Raw onion is a completely different experience
Cook an onion slowly and it becomes soft, sweet and mellow.
Eat it raw and it becomes sharp, crunchy and powerful.
Both forms have their place in Panama.
Raw onion can add freshness and acidity to heavier foods, particularly alongside meats, seafood and salads. It can be sliced thinly and added to a dish at the last moment, where its crunch contrasts with soft rice, beans or cooked vegetables.
For someone accustomed to onions primarily being cooked, encountering them raw can be a reminder of how versatile this one vegetable really is.
And if you've ever chopped a particularly strong onion in a Panamanian kitchen, you already know that the traditional saying about onions making you cry isn't an exaggeration. Even La Prensa has devoted culinary attention to the chemistry behind those tears and the different ways cooks try to reduce the smell afterward.
Onions are important to Panamanian households, not just restaurants
This distinction matters.
The onion isn't important because fancy Panamanian restaurants decided to put it on their menus.
It is important because ordinary households use it.
A government-supported study of food consumption in Panama found onions among the vegetables most commonly consumed by households, with usage particularly high in urban and rural areas.
That means the onion belongs to the everyday food economy of the country.
It's something people buy when they're shopping for the week.
Something that sits in the kitchen.
Something that gets chopped without much thought.
Something that can be added to whatever happens to be cooking.
And that is often a better measure of a food's importance than whether it appears on a tourist menu.
The onion is surprisingly important to meat
Walk through traditional Panamanian cooking and you'll notice how often meat is seasoned before it reaches the table.
Chicken, beef, pork and other meats can be marinated, stewed or cooked with combinations of onion, garlic, peppers and herbs. Panamanian culinary experts specifically identify onion and garlic as important ingredients in preparing meats.
The onion brings sweetness and depth as it cooks, while also helping create the aromatic base surrounding the meat.
A piece of meat cooked with onion and garlic becomes something entirely different from a piece of meat simply thrown into a pan with salt.
The onion provides the background.
And then there are soups
Panama has a strong tradition of soups and hearty cooked dishes, and onion is naturally suited to them.
It can be added at the beginning to build flavour or cooked directly into the broth.
The same principle applies to stews.
When onion is cooked slowly with tomatoes, garlic, peppers and herbs, it breaks down and becomes part of the sauce itself.
You may eventually be unable to identify where the onion went.
But you can taste that it was there.
Onion also connects Panama's countryside with its cities
Panama produces onions domestically, with Chiriquí, Coclé and Herrera among the country's principal production areas. MIDA identifies Chiriquí as the country's leading onion-producing province, while Coclé and Herrera are also important producers.
Chiriquí is particularly significant. Research from Panama's agricultural research institute describes Tierras Altas in Chiriquí as the country's principal horticultural region and identifies onion as one of its important crops, with a history of cultivation there stretching back more than six decades.
That creates a direct connection between the countryside and the household kitchen.
An onion growing in the cool highlands of Chiriquí can eventually end up chopped into someone's lunch in Panama City, David, Penonomé or a small rural community somewhere else in the country.
Red onions have their own place
The onion family isn't simply one uniform ingredient.
Panama also uses red or purple onions, which are particularly attractive when used raw because of their colour and sharper flavour. Government agricultural data even tracks national and red onion separately in market statistics.
The vivid purple colour can completely transform the appearance of a plate.
A few thin slices can turn an otherwise plain dish into something colourful and appetizing.
Pickled onions: another way to preserve the harvest
Onions are also used in encurtidos, or pickled preparations.
This makes practical sense in a tropical country where preserving food has historically been important.
A simple pickling process transforms raw onion into something that can be kept and used as a sharp, acidic accompaniment to other foods.
That combination of sweetness, acidity and crunch can be particularly useful alongside rich or heavy dishes.
It is another example of how the onion can move between roles: seasoning, vegetable, garnish and preserved food.
Onions are part of the economics of food
There's an economic side to this story too.
Because Panama consumes so many onions, maintaining a reliable supply is important enough that the government and agricultural industry actively monitor production, inventories and imports.
In 2024, MIDA reported plans to plant approximately 980 hectares of onions involving 614 producers, with Chiriquí, Coclé and Herrera among the major production areas. The same announcement estimated national consumption at approximately 50,000 quintales per month.
In 2025, MIDA and other institutions were still conducting national inventories of onion and potato production specifically to help maintain reliable supplies of these high-demand products.
This tells you something about the humble onion.
It is not just a garnish.
It is part of the national food supply.
The onion shortage is immediately noticeable
When a country depends heavily on a particular ingredient, problems with production or imports quickly become noticeable.
Panama has experienced periods when onion prices and availability became concerns. The agricultural chain has at times approved imports to protect supply when weather or production problems threaten the national market.
That makes sense when you consider how many households and restaurants use onions every day.
If the price of an obscure vegetable doubles, many people might barely notice.
If onions become expensive, everyone notices.
Why onions work so well in Panama
There is something particularly appropriate about onions in a tropical kitchen.
They store reasonably well compared with many fresh vegetables, are relatively inexpensive, can be cooked in numerous ways and can transform very basic ingredients.
Imagine you have rice.
Beans.
A little chicken.
Some plantain.
It is already a meal.
Now add onion, garlic, pepper, tomato and herbs.
Suddenly the same inexpensive ingredients become something far more aromatic and complex.
That's the real power of the onion.
It multiplies flavour without multiplying the cost.
A backpacker's secret ingredient
For travellers staying in Panama for an extended period, onions are also incredibly useful.
If you have access to a kitchen, buy a few.
They can form the beginning of countless inexpensive meals.
Rice with beans and sautéed onion.
Eggs with onion and peppers.
Lentils with onion and garlic.
Pasta with vegetables.
Fried rice.
Soups.
Salads.
Sandwiches.
Stir-fried vegetables.
Even a basic meal becomes much better with a little onion.
For someone travelling on a budget, that matters.
You don't need twenty ingredients.
Sometimes you need five good ones.
And onion is one of them.
More than an ingredient
The fascinating thing about onions in Panama is that they reveal something about how food culture really works.
The famous dishes get the attention.
The tourist photographs show ceviche, seafood, colourful Caribbean plates and enormous portions of rice and plantains.
But everyday cooking depends on much quieter ingredients.
Onion.
Garlic.
Culantro.
Ají dulce.
Tomato.
These are the ingredients that quietly create the flavours people associate with home.
The onion may never receive top billing.
It doesn't need to.
It has already earned its place.
The smell of a Panamanian kitchen
Perhaps the best way to understand the onion's importance is through smell.
Imagine walking past a house in Panama around lunchtime.
You smell oil heating in a pan.
Then garlic.
Then onion.
Perhaps peppers.
Perhaps tomato.
Something is simmering.
You don't yet know what lunch is going to be.
But you already know something good is happening in the kitchen.
That aroma is one of the most universal experiences of cooking.
And in Panama, the onion is often right there at the beginning of it.
It is inexpensive, humble and almost completely ordinary.
But that is precisely why it matters.
The onion isn't the ingredient Panama celebrates most loudly. It is the ingredient that quietly shows up again and again, helping turn everyday food into Panamanian food.*