19 hours Ago By [email protected] (Mathieson Nishimura)
In my humble opinion, caramelized onions are one of the greatest gifts to the culinary world. They're decadent, sweet but not saccharine, buttery, and bring a punch of umami to every dish they're heaped on. However, they have two major flaws.
First: You can use so many onions and still get just a few tablespoons of caramelized goodness. It's like spinach but even more tragic. Second: It takes such a long time to make even of caramelized onions that plenty of people (me, I mean me) rarely ever cook them, even though they're veritable ambrosia.
Well, I come bearing good news today for all us folks who hate waiting the 45 to over 60 minutes it takes to caramelize onions the traditional way. A hack that will chop the time it takes you to caramelize your onions in half. It can even be done is as little as 15 minutes.
The key: water. Basically, you want to help your onions along in the wilting process by steaming them. You can do this by turning up the heat and tossing around half a cup of water into the pan with your onions.
You don't want them fully submerged, but rather about a third or halfway covered. Then, wait for the water to boil, and pop on a lid. Let the onions cook down for about 10 minutes and remove the lid.
At this point, they'll be about half the volume and the pan will be full of their secreted sugary juices, which is the key to creating that beautiful browning. Turn the heat down to medium to keep cooking, and stir your onions occasionally so they brown evenly. With that, you'll have a whole pan of delicious, caramelized onions in much less time.
Other hacks to take the hassle out of caramelization When using the stovetop method, it's important to use , so choose something big and thick-bottomed rather than too thin. Non-stick can also help reduce mess. Avoid crowding, because that makes it harder to get an even browning, and may give you onions that just steam instead of actually caramelizing.
Keep your onions well-oiled or buttered so they don't stick to the pan, and stir frequently, but maybe not often. You want to ensure even color, but too much stirring can interfere with that. Try broth in place of water for a richer flavor.
You can also venture away from the stovetop entirely! That's right, ditch the chains keeping you tethered to a pan, and reach for your instead. And if you don't have an Instant Pot? No need for tears — you can , too. Even if this doesn't necessarily reduce cooking time, it reduce the amount of time you have to spend babysitting the dish, which is worth its own weight in gold.
With all that time freed up, you can caramelize onions more often, and enjoy some truly divine recipes like or . Just make sure you have a breath mint on hand. Recommended.
