How to Caramelize Onions Like a Pro | Food Network

Sweet, golden-brown caramelized onions take just a few simple steps.

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How to Caramelize Onions Like a Pro | Food Network

[debo]

1. Use butter. If you’re feeling frisky, add a little bacon grease. 2. Use low/medium heat. Too high of a temperature will sauté the onions and likely cause them to burn, not caramelize. 3. Just a pinch of salt to draw out the moisture. 4. Don’t stir too often. You need to have a longer surface contact time for the pyrolytic process to occur. 5. Don’t use too much water/liquid to deglaze occasionally, or you’ll halt the process, and it will take much longer. Personally, I like to use beer if I’m putting them on burgers or hot dogs, white wine for chicken or pork, and a red wine for beef and other red meats.

[nicolasfredette]

How to caramelize onions:

Step 1. Caramelize onions.

[Septiviumexe]

My first time making these tonight, hotdogs with melted cheese, caramelized onion, ketchup and mustard. Delightful

[TomBlommaart]

10-15 minutes is a lie and you know it, minimum of 30 minutes, if you are lucky...

[thunderzygarde-unknownadve]

Sounds simple...

10 mins later: Why are my onions black?

[iamgort]

Takes longer than 15 mins for sure 30+mins if you add equal amounts of brown sugar and balsamic vinegar (1tblsp each) about ten mins before finishing they are amazing. The sugar and vinegar REALLY lifts their taste!

[ligiabonfanti]

It certainly takes so much more than 15 min...

[laughingachilles]

Picking the right type of onion is the most important factor, go for the sweeter varieties, these are often the largest type of onion but not always. Use butter with the oil as you will get a wonderful nutty flavour. Oil alone won't give you the same taste as butter and using butter on it's own can result in burnt byproducts no mater how careful you are, the end result being a slightly bitter/acrid hint. Add some balsamic vinegar and a little brown sugar towards the end to get that really sticky sort of caramelized onion, making sure to scrap the pan.



I love caramelized onions and you have to take your time to avoid them being mushy or burnt.

[donaldasayers]

All cooking is chemistry. Caramelisation is an autocatalytic chemical reaction. That is the presence of caramel promotes or catalyses the production of more caramel. So to speed the reaction up add a little sugar to the pan, about a teaspoon full. The sugar will caramelise first and that will speed up the caramelisation of the onions. Still takes longer than 15 minutes though.

[jeremytheoneofdestiny]

I love when a how to video is short and doesn’t waste time

[mrsllp]

This is my preferred way to carmelize onions, except I cut down on the amount of olive oil and use a pat or two of Kerrygold butter with the olive oil. Definitely makes a big difference, gives it a luxurious, rich flavor

[Paelorian]

This video sucks. First, add a little water at the beginning. You might think it's counter-intuitive since we're trying to get water out of the onion, but it's proven to work. It actually reduces the cooking time by steaming the onions and helping them get hot enough right away to release their moisture. Otherwise the onions in the top of the pile are insulated from heat and it takes longer to get them limp.

Secondly, the way you cut the onions matters. Polar cuts (slices cut top to bottom, not side to side) are recommend. You rupture less of the onion's oblong cells this way, making for a milder and less harsh taste. Some people might actually want their caramelized onions to taste more like raw onions but most do not. We want sweet and pleasant.

Third, Food Network saying that the method they show you takes ten minutes is an outright lie and impossible. No one in the world can make a batch of caramelized onions going low and slow the traditional way with nothing but onions and a little oil. They can't do it, and whoever wrote this video deserves to be forced to make caramelized onions this way in public in under ten minutes or get put in stocks for the day and humiliated. Budget 45-60 minutes. That means an hour if you don't have experience. As you get experience, you will go faster. Do it while you're cooking something else. Low and slow means you can leave it for a few minutes at a time. Do not turn up the heat, especially once the water in the onions has mostly evaporated! Onions can burn and be ruined in seconds. You will not get the disgusting acrid carbonized taste out of the onions. You will ruin the entire batch. I've ruined enough caramelized onions to keep it slow when it counts.

There are four simple ways to speed up the process. First, add a little water at the beginning of cooking as described above. Second, if you keep an eye on the onions you can start them on high heat (the added water is extra useful here) and reduce to low once they release water. Third, you can periodically add a little water to deglaze the pan whenever frond builds up. It will get the brown frond stuck to the pan all over the onions and speed the process along. After adding a little water, turn the heat to high and stir rapidly to deglaze until the water evaporates, then turn the heat back to low. You can keep doing this in cycles. Fourth, if it's a caramelized onions emergency and you're willing to watch and stir onions for a half hour you cook at medium or even medium-high heat if you _constantly_ stir for the entire duration of cooking and deglaze as necessary.

There are two other tricks some people use, but they both compromise taste. One is to alter the pH of the onions so that they caramelize faster. This is typically accomplished by the addition of a little baking soda. Use a recipe. Your onions will taste very slightly worse, but they will be done faster. The second is to make onions in a slow cooker. This is the easiest way to make caramelized onions and maybe the task slow cookers are best at. The caramelized onions produced are definitely inferior, but they are still caramelized onions.

I usually think butter tastes better than olive oil for cooking on the stove top, but not with caramelized onions. I think they taste good with both, a little different but equally good. So usually I'll use extra virgin olive oil (don't use the fancy bottle, the long cooking is going to eliminate nuanced flavors), but sometimes I'll use butter. Like if the onions will be going into an egg sandwich or something where butter is more appropriate than olive oil.

That's all I can think of about caramelized onions that they left out of the video, but I do feel I'm forgetting some minor hardly useful things might have added, like additional cheat methods that compromise taste.

[mrearlygold]

I Like using butter and a just a  little oil to keep the butter moving, throw in a few peeled garlic cloves ( as many as you like, I like a lot ), slice onions medium thickness, salt and pepper, tony chatcheries if you can get it is great,   couple dabs of butter cover at "simmer" or even a tiny bit lower than that if your stove can do this, and open every 15 minutes or so to use a spatula to turn onions and scrape off the bottom of the pan, mxing all this goodness with the onions, re-cover, repreat 4-5 times for a total of about 45 minutes, could be longer or shorter depending on your stove and type of pan.

[User]

I like Carmelized onions. I add them with mush- roasted mushroom and melted swiss cheese. It's hot stuff.

[nytecrawlr]

I just made this for the first time in 20mins. I was surprised with how sweet it is without adding any sugar. 👍

[nadaamr]

This worked out great! Definitely would recommend, especially the adding water step because I felt like you would get some burnt bits if you didn’t add any.

[LiogCeartas]

Roasted butternut squash, some soft goat cheese spread, little fontina cheese, some harrisa aioli, allepo pepers and carmelized onions, get that ciabatta bread and make a pressed sandwich. The sweet and savory combos... yaassss.

[rty]

Carnelized onions is when the sugars are released from the oinion and begin to turn brown. For an extra awesome flavor and to enhance the extraction of sugars, add 1 tsp of maple syrup to the onions when they begin to turn brown. Always keep them moving to avoid burning. You will thank me for that tip

[Scke]

Ok so I tried this. Here’s what I’ve learned:
1) you need a lot of onions. like A LOT A LOT
2) ONLY medium heat, don’t get impatient here
3) never leave the stove. stay there, stir, add little water (it really helps)
4) it’s not gonna take 15min, I stood there for 45min and I have a good stove and quality pan

Is it worth it? Yes, definitely. We put it on our burgers and it tasted heavenly!

[SummonerOrthan]

These badboys are awesome on Turkey Burgers