Recipes

[Chi-town girl]

I'm thinking about making a batch of caramelized onions for made from scratch holiday dips. Have you been successful in freezing them with good results? 

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Frozen cooked onions are the key to quicker, tastier quarantine dinners.

You could also mix a bit into cream cheese or yogurt and spread on english muffins for breakfast. Pile them on a sandwich, a burger, or a tart. Toss a spoonful into a saucepan with beans from a can for the quickest flavor-packed lunch ever.

Or turn them into any of the 10 dinners Vivian Howard offers in This Will Make It Taste Good, such as eggs cooked in a deliciously oniony sloppy joe – style filling. Other highlights include a savory, Parmesan- and RCO-loaded take on monkey bread and a roast chicken recipe with caramelized onions puréed into a gravy-like sauce.

Having a stash of ready-cooked onions in the freezer is also, perhaps, a way to make quarantine cooking a little easier. “We have certainly relied on the Flavor Heroes [the term Howard coined for the core recipes of her book, including caramelized onions] more often over the past seven months than ever before.” says Howard.

“My husband has been doing a lot more cooking, and has leaned into using the caramelized onions as part of his repertoire.” It’s a weeknight flavor bomb that’ll make you grateful you spent a more leisurely afternoon stirring, and watching, and waiting; banking a cache of edible gold (or, more rightly, edible bronze) for the night when you need it most

Source: Epicurious

Real and true caramelized onions are onions don’t take 10 minutes to cook. To get them properly caramelized, you need to take them to the danger zone. Other caramelized onions are PG…these are rated R. It takes the better part of an hour to coax their sugars from blonde to nutty brown. That’s why you ought to make a big batch at once and save them to pull out when you want all that complex flavor without having spent all that time.  

Manipulated in the best kind of way by steam heat, then dry heat over a longer period of time than I’m typically keen to require in a multi-part recipe, caramelized onions are a leisurely labor of love that loves you back. Like a perfect stock or just the right amount of MSG, onions cooked low and slow until their sugars deepen and their flavor shape-shifts lend a hard-to-quantify but easy-to-appreciate dimension to food.

In their most well-known role as the foundation for French Onion soup they define the rustic, unforgettable flavor of a broth that launched the soup sections of a thousand menus. And in less scene-stealing appearances, caramelized onions show us that a simple ingredient coddled a certain way can give a flimsy dish a sultry backbone, or make a one-note meal all grown-up.

YIELD - Makes 2 cups

INGREDIENTS

1. • 4–5 large or 6–8 medium yellow or white onions
   • 1 Tbsp olive or vegetable oil
   • 1 tsp kosher salt

PREPARATION

1. 1. Peel your onions and cut them in half through their stem ends—longways, if you will. Slice them thinly with the grain, following the line from root to stem rather than cutting the onion across its belly. This is actually important because slicing it the other way makes the path to silky onions a longer one.
   2. Once your onions are sliced, heat your skillet over medium-high heat and add the oil, then the onions and the salt. Let the onions sizzle for a couple minutes. Stir with a wooden spoon or a heatproof spatula and watch as they wilt for about 3 more minutes. At this point, reduce the heat to medium low. Put a lid on and step away for a few minutes. Give the onions a stir every now and then. You don’t have to stand over it like risotto, but don’t go for a walk around the block either. Caramelized bits will accumulate at the bottom and sides of the pan, and that’s good. Just scrape them up and stir them in. A little color building as you go is okay, but don’t rush to brown them. The point is to cook the onions gently, coaxing them through stages of raw, wilted, sweaty, soft, light brown, and finally deeply caramelized
   3. About 45 minutes in, remove the lid for the last time. They should be a light caramel color. Now, with the lid off, you will need to watch more closely and stir more frequently. At some point you may find that despite your best efforts some of the caramelized bits, verging on burnt, cling to the pan and threaten over all onion ruin. Do not fret! Just add a ½ cup or so of water and use its energy to help scrape up the stubborn but tasty film. Let the water cook out of course. When you’re smiling over a soft, creamy, fragrant pile of mahogany onions, you’re done.
   4. Note: R-Rated Onions will keep in the fridge for a week and in the freezer for 3 months

[santorini]

I thought I was going to find a photo of an onion that had grown in the shape of an unmentionable body part. 😀 

[Chi-town girl]

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@santorini wrote:

I thought I was going to find a photo of an onion that had grown in the shape of an unmentionable body part. 😀 

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@santorini  - yep, the title of the article caught my interest 

[LizzieInSRQ]

one of my favorite ingredients ever.yummy!

[novamc1]

@Chi-town girl 

That's  a really long and involved description for preparing caramelized onions, which I do frequently in an easier way.

Simply cut up onions  in chunks or slices (depending on how you like your onions in your recipes), put them either in a saucepan (preferably nonstick) on very low heat for an hour or two ....or in a small crockpot/slowcooker for a couple of hours.

No additional liquid needed in either type of pot when using low heat, because the onions create their own sauce.

I sometimes add a little butter and Worcestershire sauce to the onions while they're simmering and caramelizing.

Then I freeze in small quantities.

[Chi-town girl]

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@novamc1 wrote:

@Chi-town girl 

That's  a really long and involved description for preparing caramelized onions, which I do frequently in an easier way.

Simply cut up onions  in chunks or slices (depending on how you like your onions in your recipes), put them either in a saucepan (preferably nonstick) on very low heat for an hour or two ....or in a small crockpot/slowcooker for a couple of hours.

No additional liquid needed in either type of pot when using low heat, because the onions create their own sauce.

I sometimes add a little butter and Worcestershire sauce to the onions while they're simmering and caramelizing.

Then I freeze in small quantities.

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Thank you @novamc1 . The crockpot suggesion sounds good! The initial "steaming" of the onions seems essential. I read that freezing in ice cube trays is recommended, same as I do for leftover chicken stock

[novamc1]

@Chi-town girl 

Ice cube trays would  be a little too small for the onion portions that I want to freeze, but...

whatever works for you, go with it !

[novamc1]

@Chi-town girl 

Not sure what  you meant when you wrote that "steaming the onions seems essential"?

Maybe I missed something or just don't know something, but I've   never seen steaming as a specific technique for onions.  They produce their own liquid as caramelization progresses.

I love onions fixed any kind of way and cook them down to a caramelized state often to add to various hamburger and other meat dishes.  YUM!