Caramelized Onions!

Caramelized onions add amazing flavor to meals of all kinds. They can be used to bump up a frozen pizza or a take-out burger, and they can take homemade meals from good to great. Not much is needed to get your onions wonderfully brown-- the most important ingredient is patience. I always use the white or brown skin onions for caramelizing, but if you are a red onion fiend, go ahead and try it. This is also a great way to prepare leeks or shallots; use either in the same way you'd use an onion.

The Process

Cut an onion or two into thin-to-medium slices. This may seem like way too much onion, but the onion cooks down a lot during the saute. When I cut onions, I like to cut in half around the "equator," then put the cut end down on my cutting board. I'll then slice into my desired thickness. I think this results in a prettier sliced onion. Set your burner to medium-low, and pour a tablespoon of olive oil per onion into a non-stick pan. Add a tablespoon of butter in there if you want. Adding the butter makes the flavor even better, but is not necessary to make your onions delicious.

Use a wooden spoon to stir the onions every five or ten minutes. While the onion is slowly browning, your house will smell amazing, and you've got plenty of time to get other parts of dinner ready. After 15-20 minutes, your onions will look like this:

Have patience! After around 35 minutes, your onions will look and smell amazing, but keep waiting, and keep your burner on medium-low.

Remove your onions from the burner after 45 minutes. If you have more patience than I do, you can continue to saute for closer to 60 minutes and you'll have a bit more brown than I've got here, but I usually am too hungry to wait that long.

Eat it! I use caramelized onions in eggs, pizzas, burritos, onion dip, grilled cheese, salad dressing, and many other dishes, but in our house we most often use these with meat. These are delicious on top of a steak or burger!

If you've got leftovers, these onions freeze well. To use after freezing, add straight to a dish from the freezer, or throw back into your pan with a little oil to brown them up a little more before using as a topping.