I don’t know about you, but I don’t have an hour to sit around and stir onions on a busy weeknight. That’s why I like to buy a big bag of onions when they’re on sale, and spend a few hours on a lazy Sunday caramelizing the whole bag. You can then portion the caramelized onions into ice cube trays and freeze them, allowing you to add a ton of flavor to a quick weeknight pasta sauce or curry. Caramelizing onions is a three step process. During the first stage (45-60 minutes), you cook the onions with a lid, braising them in their own juices. The salt helps the onions release their liquid quickly so they don’t burn. You want to braise them in their own liquids until the onions are mostly broken down into a light brown mash. The second stage (45-60 minutes), involves boiling off the liquid that the onions have released. During the final stage (about 30 minutes), most of the moisture has been driven off and you’re frying the onions in the oil that was added initially. This is where most of the caramelization happens. Here are a few key points to speed things up and make the process easier: There are other shortcuts you can take, like raising the temperature, but this typically delivers unevenly caramelized onions, as the exterior of each onion slice will start burning before the interior is fully caramelized. You can also dramatically speed up caramelization by raising the pH of the onions (i.e. adding baking soda), however I’ve noticed this adds a slightly bitter metallic taste which is why I like to do it the old-school way unless I’m really pressed for time.
📖 Recipe
