What’s your go-to method for caramelizing onions?

butter

MY GF did it one time... Used a dutch oven and cut up the onions in ringlets and coated them in olive oil and salt.. Put the D.O. in the oven at 350.. When she smelled the onions took it and stirred them up and added OO if needed and put it back for not sure how long... It came out awesome... I could just eat a bowl of them...

A lil olive oil and a hot skillet

quote:

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There’s no shortcut. People will say there is, but they’re making something other than caramelized onions. Takes a long time, controlled heat, and stirring as needed.

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1000x this. The recipe from Serious Eats has never failed me, and it puts the "shortcuts" straight, all in one place. I put a few shallots in the mix too. I never thought I would have eaten straight carmelized onions out of pan, but I sure have now. Once you make a batch, you can freeze the leftovers in an ice cube tray and pop out as needed, similar to this (they also make garlic and ginger in frozen pods):

Butter or a little oil. I like to get my onions a little burnt. I love that taste.

Thin cut onions on a mandolin, butter in a black iron skillet. Sauté over medium heat, add salt & pepper, stirring constantly. When you get desired doneness, remove from heat, stir some more. Enjoy…

Did a batch in a crockpot for an attempt at FO soup. Soup was all right, but I did really like the tast of the onions once they were caramelized. I've tasted caramelized onions at a fairly high end restaurant and they are delicious. I read a comparison of cp vs pc cooking for soups/broths, and though the pc won every time, the cp was lauded as being the best no-hassle way to caramelize onions (and was maybe its only use, therefore).

How come a lot of recipes will lie about how long it takes to carmalize onions. Usually I see stuff like this.

Carmalize one cup of onions (5 minutes)

No way, takes at least 20 minutes.

Large pot, butter and olive oil, salt, onions sliced

Cover the pot -critical step

Low heat

35-45 minutes and they’re perfect

Mine take forever, but no short cut method has ever worked for me.

ATK has a recipe that adds a unique twist (which I've not yet tried) at the end:

"Instead of finishing with sugar or honey as many recipes call for, we added baking soda, which speeds up the reaction that converts flavorless inulin (a polysaccharide present in onions) to fructose."

After the onions are fairly well browned:

Combine 1/8 teaspoon baking soda and 1 tablespoon water in bowl. Stir baking soda solution into onions and cook, stirring constantly, until solution has evaporated, about 1 minute. Transfer onions to bowl.