? about Shallots

A question for the cooks here I guess...

Ok, There is a recipe I've been wanting to try that calls for shallots. I've never used them before. I looked at them in the store and they look like little onions, but cost alot more.

My question is...What is the difference between shallots and onions? Can onions be used as a subsitute?

Thanks for any help!

Shallots are cool! They are a cross between onion and garlic. But they are milder than either by themselves.

but onions and garlic will work too as long as you don't plan to give any to the cat!

I think it depends on what you are making but I think that shallots are cool too and probably worth the extra money

but hey, the best recipes happen when people make substitutions so give it a shot

We grow Shallots, Walla Walla Sweet onions and garlic. Much cheaper that way.

Shallots are a much milder type of onion, you could try subsituting green onions for the shallots. Or perhaps a small amount of white onions. The yellow onions have too strong of an onion flavor. Leeks would work also, but shallots get real soft and kind of disappear when cooked in a dish whereas leeks are mild in flavor but since they are lets say more fibrous (which isn't a bad thing at all!!) they pieces will we seen in your food dish. (I've tried to grow shallots the shallots bulbs are surprisingly expensive to grow!!) FYI- I'm called midwest martha in my office!

Thanks everyone for the great info! It's an Orange Ginger Green Bean recipe, so the cats won't really want any....except Roo, she wants to eat everything you have, but she gets no onions or garlic!

My cat loves to watch me work on the bench, he will go up onto the cup board and watch me from up there, once i started to cry really badly from onions.
He came down to give me a cuddle but ended up running away!!

I usually use shallots more than onion. My husband prefers the flavour of the shallots. IMO they are worth the extra money, but then when it comes to food I have no budget! I'll cut down on almost everything else but not food.