Who's fucking carmelizing onions?

I always say if you want to seem like a genius in the kitchen just sauté some onions

I saw somewhere there exists a saying along the lines of 'start sauteing onion, add some garlic, then you figure out what you are going to cook.' When my wife and I have time to actually cook, this is basically what we do. everything is better with garlic and onions, from German to Korean. The rest is just details.
- Apparently it's a Ukrainian saying
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I usually start my meals by sauteing onions and without fail whoever is in the house will say "Ooo, that smells good what is it?"

Literally just onions
- Saute onions and garlic, then decide what you're making for dinner
- Saute carrots, onions, and celery. Everyone will think you're making something incredible. And, fortunately, you'll have the base to follow through, if you so desire.
- Haha, I can cook but I don't really know what I am doing. It usually starts with some oil and garlic or onions in a pan, then I figure out what to actually cook. But if someone walks in at just that step they think you're some culinary genious.
- There's a reason why cooked onions are common across almost every international cuisine on earth.
- That's probably why they call it an aromatic.
Best way to stop a small argument? Saute onions in olive oil then add some garlic. Guarantee a head will poke around a door frame and all arguments melt away.
- hedge magic
So how do you do it?

I'm asking because I learned not a long time ago to somewhat heavily salt the onions beforehand (in olive oil ofc) and it's great. Burst for some minute or three, keep hot while stirring til done (hard, melted, ...).

I don't put garlic in it though, I'd put that in the rest of the food if I do.
- I made a big batch yesterday (4 large onions).
  
  Butter and olive oil. Add onions. I add water at the beginning so I don't have to pay as much attention as the beginning. Once the onions are soft, turn it low and take your time. Only stir occasionally.
  
  I used the instant pot yesterday and it was super easy.
- Really I just lightly spray some canola oil in the pan and add sliced onions and heat.
- I put the sliced onions (vidalia or candy) with a small splash of olive oil into a skillet on high heat (no salt) and cook them for 10-15 minutes, stirring them around every couple of minutes. They always come out perfectly. I don't know why people are saying 30 to 45 minutes or hours in a slow cooker, or adding water, butter or sugar or whatever - all unnecessary and time consuming. Adding water in particular seems like the worst possible thing you could do as it's just going to steam them, which isn't what you want at all (adding salt essentially does the same thing by drawing water out of the onions).
  
  I also don't add garlic, as garlic will just burn under the same conditions that caramelize the onions.
Ooh sauté, well lah-de-dah Mr Frenchman!
I like to add them to mac and cheese

Remember, it takes at least 45 minutes to caramelize an onion. If you're doing it for less than 45 minutes, then you're just cooking it.

45 minus to fully caramelize.

If you don't want them that dark you don't have to cook them that long.
- Sure, you can use non-caramelized onions. You just won't get that sweetness.
I know you're joking, but the only way I can see it taking that long is if you put whole onions into an oven set to 180° to 200° F.

In a frying pan, one can easily caramelize an entire large frying pan of onions in about 30 minutes, or even faster if you decide to use physics to your advantage, and add a small amount of water to your pan and caramelize your pan of onions within 14 minutes. This is an advanced technique that requires some experience to try to use. Much like making a Dark Roux in 15 minutes.
- I'm absolutely not joking. If you're cooking it for less than 45 minutes, you're not caramelizing the onions. Frequent stirring, adding water, whatever, you can get the color and texture of caramelization, but not the flavor.
  
  I spent a couple of years making slightly disappointing meals because I was focused on the color and texture of my onions instead of the flavor. When I finally took the time to fully caramelize them again, I remembered what I had been missing.
  
  Try it and taste the difference if you don't believe me.
- put whole onions into an oven set to 180° to 200° F.
  
  Wait, would that work?
I know it's not exactly the same as a low temp for a while. But you can get pretty good results with a high temp, just need to deglaze more frequently, usually with water until they're almost done. Then wine and/or balsamic is good.
... That explains a lot

I had someone arrive at a BBQ, saw me frying some onions, and ask "Are you going to caramelise those onions?"

Yes mate. The onions I'm frying for a few minutes while the burgers cook, gonna be nice and caramelised in seconds, just you watch.

Every time I do a Bunnings BBQ for the community centre, it's women run, we get the onions on ASAP because they need time to cook, and we'll have people buying a plain onion sandwich in addition to a snag, because caramelised onions are so good!

Every time I volunteer to help my partners football club run a sausage sizzle, I'm saying "put the onions on, they take longer" and I'm told by the guys "I'm a man, I know how to BBQ, go away little girl, go hold the sign and be pretty"

Then everyone buying a snag is complaining about crunchy raw onions, and the guys are saying "why did we buy so many onions?" (because you were supposed to cook them down so they shrink!)

These same men will unironically say "women belong in the kitchen" then won't take cooking advice from a woman.

(also, the footy guys always giving me flak for deglazing the BBQ plate with water to help the onions cook down faster. They'll just keep adding oil, once saw a Rotary Club use 1L of canola oil to half cook 5kg of onions, when we've never needed more than 200ml to fully cook onions, because onions need water to cook down!)
- Ngl, you just taught me some thing, I thought I was cooking them down quick, frying them in my bacon fat, before adding eggs to them, I'll have to try adding some water, maybe that will make them come out better.
I mean ... you can caramelize an onion in a few minutes.

They'll be burnt to shit, but the few bits that aren't will be caramelized.

anathema to this community but relevant

Little Anon Starting Early
I have a 3 year old nephew and if you gave him a caramel onion like that I think he'd either eat it happily or ask for a plain onion instead. That kid loves himself some onions.
The only thing I get from that story is that adults and peer pressure sucks. Eat that candied onion and enjoy it as much as you want, fuck those those stupid "grown-ups".

30 minutes

https://youtu.be/Ovqhzil3wJw?feature=shared

We start our caramelized onions in a covered nonstick skillet over high heat with ¾ of cup water. The water and steam help the onions quickly soften. Then we remove the lid, lower the heat to medium-high, and press the softened onions into the bottom and sides of the skillet to allow for maximum contact with the hot pan. Instead of finishing with sugar or honey as many recipes call for, we add baking soda, which speeds up the reaction that converts flavorless inulin (a polysaccharide present in onions) to fructose.

My face smells like onions for 3 days straight after cooking something with onions for more than 20 minutes. It should be much more terrible to have just onions in the pan
- That's a non-starter then. Nothing is worth a 3 day onion facial.
5-8 hours. Slow cooker is the only way to go, imo.
- Only way I've done em. I am basically incapable of standing in front of the same pot for 45 mins. Don't get me wrong, I love cooking, but some of the really tedious styles, especially if also monotonous, I can't do. I'd get distracted by something eventually.
- Slow cooker, on the back porch, if making a batch of them. Otherwise just low & slow in the skillet. A comment farther up says 'many recipes call for sugar' but I have never seen that. The onions that make your eyes water when you cut them, and a little salt & olive oil.

Now I want to try some apples and onions with a caramel glaze.

Might work with pork chops.
- Who's caramelizing pork chops?
- It would absolutely work with pork chops. It's even better with a walnut crust.
Now I want to try thin sliced apples in with my onions when I caramelize them for added sweetness.
- I wouldn't cook them as long though 👍.
- Dice the apples. That's a common way to do it for curry meatballs (curry sauce with meatballs served with rice and various toppings).
  
  The apples make the sauce more filling and offsets some of the potential sourness of the onions/curry. It is all about the balance. I like to taste the sauce to perfection using salt, pepper, curry, sugar or syrup before adding the meatballs, but having apples in the sauce definitely makes it easier to begin with.
I don't know about caramel glaze, but you might want to try apple and or onion chutney.
Can't speak for caramel, but they're excellent with potatoes, butternut squash, browned butter and sage.

Gonna hand out caramel onions for Halloween now.

Caramel roulette. 5 apples and an onion on the same plate.
They better be Spanish/yellow onions. Don't go easy on them with any Vidalia/sweet onion!

:P
- I'd go with white
- Nah, just like with caramel apples the best caramel onions are gonna be GREEN!

Who up caramelizing they onions

Trained chefs who know how to get rich colour from onion soup for one. As well as anyone who knows how to make good sauteed onions.

Hey guys. I am no cook and I don't speak English natively. What the heck is caramelising onions?

I thought caramelising is when the sugar liquifies and you get caramel. So caramelising onions would be to cover them in lots of sugar and cooking them until they are covered in caramel.

But it sounds like you are just deep roasting them.

The sugar in the onion is caramelising
It's just a process of slowly cooking them on a low heat, they'll naturally go quite sweet after a while without having to add sugar.
It's just slowly cooking chopped onions in a pan until they are a deep brown and very soft and sweet. If you've ever had french onion soup, that's basically just caramelized onions in broth.
Caramelization is the process of sugars browning due to high heat. The actual reactions that are happening is a combination of sugars and their chains breaking down into smaller compounds and those smaller compounds recombining into other compounds, all these new compounds gives caramelized foods their distinctive colour and taste.

When making caramel the sugar liquification happens often in high enough temperatures for caramelization to occur. The process of sauteeing/high temperature cooking onions long enough involves the same exact reactions. In onions the bit longer chain sugars that dont taste sweet are broken down into simple sugars thus producing the sweet taste of caramelized onions and the further reactions produce the caramel colour and taste.

Tldr: caramelization is a group of chemical reactions and 'caramel' is basically a taste and colour that results from it
- Thanks. So I thought correctly, but didn't think of the longer chain sugar in onions, since they usually don't taste sweet.
- caramelization is a group of chemical reactions
  
  They're known as Maillard Reactions
In German it's called "karamellisieren". It's a general cooking thing, not an exclusively English or American.

You can caramelize onions in five minutes, but the onions won't be very satisfied afterwards

"Who's caramelizing onions? Probably someone who knows the secret to happiness—turning tears into sweetness, one slow stir at a time! Or maybe they're just trying to make their kitchen smell like a five-star restaurant while secretly burning their grilled cheese." 😄 --- Bostock Electronics

Unless your cooking Italian. I had an Italian tell me once, it's either garlic or onions but not both together

It's weird, I watch a lot of Youtube videos about street food vendors in India and sometimes they brag about not using garlic or onions in their offerings. I don't get how that could possibly be a selling point.
- Indian food without garlic and onions is trying to be religiously inclusive. Jainism is a popular religion in India, which teaches nonviolence. Included in that belief is the idea that nothing should be harmed, even plants. As such, they seek to avoid eating any vegetables that are harvested by killing the plant. Onions and garlic both require that their plants be killed, so Jains try to avoid those. Instead, their food often contains hing, a smelly spice that hasn’t really caught on in the west. I haven’t tried it, but hose that have say that once cooked, hing somewhat resembles the taste of onions and garlic.

Y'all, pinch of baking soda and you'll have caramelized onions in no time flat. It's amazing.

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- I tried "velveting" some beef the other day (basically marinating the meat in baking soda) and the result was absolutely disgusting, both in terms of texture and flavor. I wonder if maybe I didn't wash off the baking soda sufficiently and got soap, although that wouldn't explain the texture issue. The texture was similar to Chinese takeout beef but somehow not as palatable.
- I've never had it break them down too much, nor create anything remotely soapy in flavor. Perhaps it chemically does create soap, I don't know. But the end result is delicious and I'm a fifth the time.
Wait now, what? I wish to know more.
- Yep, it's jump starting a process key to flavors we all like called the Maillard Reaction
  
  E: guess I'm technically correct about baking soda speeding up caramelization, but not in regards to what the Maillard reaction has to do with caramelizing. Whoops.