Caramelized onions are amazing. Slowly cooking sliced onions in a bit of butter brings out the sweetness of the onion. As they cook, the natural sugars are released that then caramelize and give the onions a beautiful golden brown color. They can elevate a basic burger, kick-up a quesadilla or create a magnificent onion dip. But, they can be tricky to make. We’ve outlined easy steps to properly caramelizing onions and show what not to do. The result will be the best caramelized onions ever. If there are leftovers, they will last in the fridge for three-four days. They can be frozen too for up to a few months.
How to Caramelize Onions
1. Prep the onion. Cut the roots off the onion.
2. Cut the onion in half and slice the onions to approximately 1/8 of an inch. Too thick will take a long time to caramelize, too thin and they’ll burn.
3. Add olive oil and butter. Add enough oil and butter to cover the bottom of the pan. Butter adds to the flavor, but can also burn so keep an eye on the heat.
4. Add onions to the pan. Place sliced onions into heated pan and coat with oil. Cook the onions low and slow. The heat should never be above medium. If they start to burn, turn to low.
5. Stir for approximately 10 minutes.
6. Deglaze pan. Deglazing the pan gets the browned residue from the bottom of the pan. Depending on the flavor you want, you can deglaze with water, broth, beer, wine, etc.
7. Keep cooking the onions for another 10 minutes. Caramelizing onions can’t be rushed. Keep stirring for a bit.
8. Deglaze pan again. Use a bit of the same liquid you used before and deglaze the pan making sure to get all the good browned bits.
9. Continue cooking and deglazing. Caramelizing onions takes time and requires a lot of babysitting the pan. It can take as long as 40 minutes and can’t be rushed. Continue to cook and deglaze until the desired color.
9. Enjoy! The finished product is a nicely deep brown color without being burnt, full of flavor and magnificent. Click here to save this recipe to your Recipe Box.
Tips for Making Caramelizing Onions
- Slice onions in a uniform size.
- Make sure onions are completely coated with oil and butter.
- Don’t use a white onion when caramelizing onions. Use a yellow or sweeter onion. They have a higher sugar content making the overall product sweeter.
- Determine what to deglaze your pan with based on how you’re using the onions.
- Deglazing a pan with beef or chicken broth will add great basic flavor to your onions. Red wine, cooking sherry, balsamic vinegar will add a robust flavor and are great with beef. White wine or even apple juice adds sweetness and pair perfectly with pork or chicken.
What Not To Do When Caramelizing Onions
1. Thinly slice the onions. Sliced too thin, the onions will burn before properly caramelizing.
2. Crank the heat to high. The pan was deglazed, however, the heat was way too high. The onions were almost burnt in less than 15 minutes. These caramelized onions have lots of burnt edges and are not cooked evenly.
