The command is simply npm uninstall <name>
The Node.js documents https://npmjs.org/doc/ have all the commands that you need to know with npm.
A local install will be in the node_modules/
directory of your application. This won't affect the application if a module remains there with no references to it.
If you're removing a global package, however, any applications referencing it will crash.
Here are different options:
npm uninstall <name>
removes the module from node_modules
but does not update package.json
npm uninstall <name> --save
also removes it from dependencies
in package.json
npm uninstall <name> --save-dev
also removes it from devDependencies
in package.json
npm uninstall -g <name> --save
also removes it globally