Melted Onions Recipe on Food52 (2024)

FAQs

Can you melt an onion? ›

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.

I love non-stick pans for making pancakes and eggs, but they're not the best pick for caramelized onions. Instead, I recommend using a cast-iron skillet. As the onions cook, a delicious fond will develop on the bottom of the pan. If you scrape it up and stir it into the onions, it will make their flavor even richer.

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onions, cook and stir until lightly browned. Sprinkle in the sugar, and continue cooking until onions are deep golden brown, about 10 minutes. Stir in the chicken broth and vinegar and season with paprika.

When you cook onions they go through some obvious physical changes. First, they get hot and release moisture, at which point they become slightly translucent. Keep cooking them and they begin to brown and sweeten because their sugars caramelize.

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.

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.

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.

Some recipes say it takes 45 minutes to 1 hour to caramelize diced onions, while others recommend 30 to 40 minutes for thin slices.

You're not sautéing your onions—you're trying to slowly coax flavor out of them. It takes time, probably a solid 45 minutes, for the onions' sugars to caramelize. If your heat is too high, the onions will burn. Heat your pan over medium-low, then add your onions.

Why are my caramelized onions soggy? ›

You may be cooking them on too high a heat, leading them to caramelize before all the liquid they release has evaporated. Try lowering the heat and giving them more time. Some onions are wetter than others, so you need to keep an eye on them and see how much liquid they release.

Caramelize the onions: Heat about 1 tablespoon of canola oil in a large skillet or dutch oven over medium-low heat. Once hot, add the onions and stir to coat. Let cook, stirring every 5-10 minutes, until deeply caramelized, about 1 ½ - 2 hours.

The key to making Caramelized Onions is cooking them low and slow. No more than medium heat and plan for it to take awhile.

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.

To get the melt-in-your-mouth texture, the onions need to be covered tightly and need a heaping helping of the secret ingredient: time. The combination of the long cook time and securely-wrapped onions will make them fall-apart tender and irresistible.

They can be eaten cooked or raw and are a staple food worldwide. In addition to their flavoring abilities, onions are a rich source of vitamins, minerals, and fiber and offer several health benefits. But these properties can sometimes change depending on whether you cook your onions or eat them raw.

Onions are almost always cooked in some kind of fat, although they can be softened in a small amount of liquid.

Your onions have gone bad if they have dark brown spots, are squishy to the touch, or are secreting moisture. Your onion may also be bad if it's sprouting. However, some people simply cut the sprouts off and eat the rest of the onion.