Like a lot of cooking skills that seem basic, making caramelized onions is actually more complicated than it appears. When I first started trying to make them, all of my attempts were total flops. I'd heard they were the kind of thing you could just set and forget, but when I did that, I'd always come back to find my onions nothing like I expected—somehow undercooked and overcooked all at the same time.
As is often the case, my problem was that I was being impatient. What I didn't realize at the time is that caramelizing onions is less about setting and forgetting and more about going low and slow. If you rush through the process and crank up the heat, your onions are more likely to burn than caramelize. But if you take your time, you'll find that they're actually pretty easy to cook and surprisingly forgiving if you make a mistake.
Plus, it's definitely worth learning how to make caramelized onions because there so many delicious ways to use them in your food—they're basically the candy of the vegetable world. With this guide that I've created using both expert advice and my own experience, you'll finally learn how to caramelize onions perfectly too.
Use more onions than you think you need, because they will shrink down.
Since caramelized onions take a while to cook, it's best to make a large batch at once. Not only that, but onions shrink a lot during the cooking process—one small onion will yield about a tablespoon or two of caramelized onions—so it's really not even worth it unless you're cooking a bunch. At minimum, I'd suggest using about eight onions every time. Your pan will be brimming and it should look like this:
Audrey Bruno
Cut the onions into long, 1/4-inch-thick strips for best results.
These are also known as julienne slices. This is the best size to cut the onions for a final product that's tender and jammy like caramelized onions should be, but not complete mush, says Christine Hazel, recent winner of Food Network's Chopped. If you cut them thicker than that, they'll need longer on the stovetop and may cook unevenly, and if you cut them thinner they'll turn into mush, she explains. It's OK if they're not perfectly even, but in general, a 1/4-inch cut is what you should aim for.
