Melted Onions Recipe on Food52 (2024)

FAQs

Can onions be melted? ›

Melt the butter in the stockpot over medium-low heat. Add the sliced onions. Keep your eye on the onions and stir often at the beginning to allow all the slices to have contact with the bottom of the pot so they start to release their liquid. In about 45 minutes they should have released a good amount of liquid.

After 10 minutes, sprinkle some salt over the onions, and if you want, you can add some sugar to help with the caramelization process. (I add only about a teaspoon of sugar for 5 onions, you can add more.) One trick to keeping the onions from drying out as they cook is to add a little water to the pan.

You can caramelize any kind of onion, but yellow or Spanish onions tend to offer the most balanced-sweet-savory flavor profile and are the most versatile for different dishes. Sweet onions, such as Vidalia or Walla Walla work too, but keep in mind that their flavor will become even sweeter once caramelized.

And changes in color signal changes in flavor. Onions release amino acids that react with sugar as they heat up. It's this chemical reaction that creates wonderful flavors and changes in color. And if you've tasted caramelized onions before, you've experienced this magic first hand.

You can use either oil or butter to caramelize onions — but ideally, you use a combination of both! I like to use olive oil, and this cooking fat tolerates heat particularly well. Meanwhile, butter adds a distinctly rich flavor to the caramelized onions.

Our Test Kitchen likes to use butter when caramelizing onions, as it offers the richest flavor. If you avoid dairy or don't have butter, you can caramelize onions in other fat such as margarine or olive oil. Add the onion slices. It's okay if they overlap a bit here because they'll shrink as they cook down.

Simply put, caramelized onions aren't quick. It takes at least 45 minutes (and often over an hour) over low heat for the natural sugars in the onions to caramelize. Still, the time is totally worth it. Packed with irresistible umami flavor, caramelized onions add complexity to all sorts of savory dishes.

Once the water is boiling or close to it, put a lid on the pan so the onions can steam. This essentially massively speeds up the process of wilting the onions, which can be the first 15-20 minutes of the sautéing process.

Sautéing vs caramelizing

Sautéing is about softening and lightly flavoring the onions, while caramelizing is about developing a rich, sweet complexity. Unfortunately, you can't swap one out for the other without changing the flavor profile of your dish.

Tip: use apple cider vinegar for white and yellow onions and balsamic vinegar for red onions. Tip: the vinegar serves to deglaze the pan, adds acidity, and brings this recipe together by boosting the tangy and savory flavors of the caramelized onions. If the onions stick to the pan, that's fine.

Should you cover the pan when caramelizing onions? ›

Cover the pot with a lid, and then turn the burner on to medium-low heat. Cook covered until the onions have mostly broken down and are a pale brown sludge (about 45-60 minutes). Be sure to stir the pot periodically, checking to make sure the onions aren't burning.

Not cooking the onions long enough.

→ Follow this tip: Cook times will vary depending on the number of onions you're cooking and the type of onion (its sugar content and age), but plan to cook caramelized onions for 40 to 50 minutes (at least) until they have a dark-brown, rich color.

Around 30 Minutes: Onions should be light blonde in color and starting to become jammy. More fond is starting to build up, but it should still be fairly easy to scrape it up with the evaporating liquid from the onions. Around 40 Minutes: Onions are golden and starting to smell very caramelized.

Melt butter in a small pan and add sliced onion. Cook on medium heat for 15 minutes, stirring. Add sugar and stir through for a further 15 minutes until very dark brown in colour. This recipe is excellent mixed with Red Wine Jus Gravy!

But indeed sautéing onions in water gets them soft and clear with less shrinkage compared to sautéing in a fat. You're really making stewed onion bits. The flavor profiles are entirely different, seeming as how in water the maximum temperature is 100C and in a fat/oil temperatures you're hitting 175C and higher.

Maximum temperatures should stay below 75°F once bulbing begins. Beyond that, you're in the danger zone. High heat can trigger bolting, where onions get all dramatic, shooting up flower stalks instead of fattening bulbs.