Caramelized Onions Recipe (2024)

Word of warning - this leaves a burnt onion smell in the cooker that is practically impossible to get out - even with baking soda/vinegar, etc. Make at your own risk. For me, it isn't worth it.

Tried this. Much prefer The old-fashioned Julia Child method, which usually takes a couple of hours, 5lbs of onions, a bit of butter, a bit of olive oil, start covered, then once the onions start to give up their liquid, uncover, crank the heat up a tiny bit, and stir every five minutes. Ties you to the stove, for sure, but the result is much richer. I make batches then portion out into freezer bags and freeze (which they do, beautifully).

Caramelized onions and sauteed onions distinctly different preparations. If one substitutes sauteed for caramelized, a gross injustice is to the recipe is the result.

Yes, you can freeze the onions.But why not double your mileage? Make ice cubes out of the juices.Pop one into another dish for an instant flavor boost that's still full of character--melt one and sautee asparagus in the liquid, add two into a marinade, or elevate a simple soup. The possibilities are endless.

If you read Thomas Kellers description of how he makes his onions for French onion soup he would disagree with you that you can get the same result in a shorter time. Check Bouchon cookbook.

My food coop gives waaaay toooo many onions, yellow & white. I use a mandoline to slice the onions and cram my crock pot full over the brim. Put a colander on top because you want all the liquid to evaporate. Stir the onions every couple of hours, or not if your sipping wine and playing your mandolin. 12 hours is minimum, might take a day, but in the end it melts down to a good quart or more of killer caramelized onions that can be bagged and frozen. Done right, you only do this once a year

Silly to cook for 12 hours. Just sautee all in less than an hour. And I used 3T butter and some olive oil. Delish.

I used another recipe of just butter and dash of salt in my instant pot on slow cooker-low. Turns out Low is way too low, after 15 hours I had gray onions in lots of broth. Didn't give up, reset to High for another 12 hours with the lid co*cked. Result was delicious tender sweet onions, minimal liquid, but their brownness was grayish still. The balsamic in this recipe will fix that. Going to have to test my cooker with water, taking its temperature at each setting to know what it will do. Thanks.

Try greasing the cook pot with olive oil before cooking. This should help with clean up and isn’t as wasteful as buying & tossing plastic liners.

I use a liner for the crockpot... Just throw it away after they're done!

Can you freeze this with good results?

I did a version of this recipe from another source - no balsamic vinegar. After 8 hours on low, I tilted the lid of the crock pot leaving it on low for another 2-3 hours. The onions darkened and more of the liquid evaporated. After packaging the onions for the freezer, I took the remaining strained off liquid and used it in place of stock in another recipe. Pretty slick when you want to process a large amount of onions but don't want to be tied to the stove.

I have made this for the second time and I love the hands off method of doing it in the slow cooker. I used the reduce function on the multicooker after the 12 hours and it worked perfectly to reduce the liquid.

Very disappointing. In all my years of preparing caramelized onions I had never seen a recipe for including balsamic vinegar. But then I’ve never used a slow cooker for this process either so thought I’d give it a go. Bleeech. There is an over riding taste of vinegar—not the richness of the slow cooked onions. This recipe is bound for the recycle bin.

I cooked them on high for about 5 hours, stirring every hour (you could just walk away for 5 hours). They cook 90%. Use only what you need by finishing them in a skillet with a little more butter. Refrigerate leftovers. I substituted 1/2 tsp of white sugar for the balsamic, used a whole stick of butter, and you can always add more salt later.

This made my house smell amazing all day, and at the end of it I had some darn tasty onions. I rarely have the time to properly caramelize onions on the stovetop, so this is going to be a total lifesaver. It made plenty of onions to use in the morning, plus a big batch to freeze for later. And I love the idea of freezing the liquid to add to soup or other dishes later!I did notice a faint onion smell in my slow cooker after washing it, but I don’t think it’s enough to affect future dishes.

Really cool. Love the idea of just throw away the crock pot liner! So environmental! I threw my crock pot away with it! Looking to buy another one so I can throw it away! Already threw away a bag of Zip Lock bags without opening them! great tip!

Try greasing the cook pot with olive oil before cooking. This should help with clean up and isn’t as wasteful as buying & tossing plastic liners.

I did a version of this recipe from another source - no balsamic vinegar. After 8 hours on low, I tilted the lid of the crock pot leaving it on low for another 2-3 hours. The onions darkened and more of the liquid evaporated. After packaging the onions for the freezer, I took the remaining strained off liquid and used it in place of stock in another recipe. Pretty slick when you want to process a large amount of onions but don't want to be tied to the stove.

Observations: Used "salted" butter and left out extra salt. Tastes great!I cut these up earlier in the day & cooked them overnight. stirring every couple hours before going to sleep; SUPER EASY! Next time I'll reduce cooking time, either use "high" setting at 4 hours or "low" at 8-9. 12 was TOO long, so I stopped it just after 11. Probably could have stopped it much earlier.DEFINTELY use liners! Made clean up QUICK, EASY, and left NO scent in stoneware!

I have made this for the second time and I love the hands off method of doing it in the slow cooker. I used the reduce function on the multicooker after the 12 hours and it worked perfectly to reduce the liquid.

I tried this recipe after the twelve hours I had something that looked more like a bland french onion soup, not sweet golden caramelized onions.

This turned out well and was very easy to make, but do give it a stir periodically, as I discovered near the end that my onions were burnt on the edges of the pot, even though I had it on low.

Can you use apple cider vinegar instead of balsamic? Not a fan of balsamic so I don’t have any on hand.

I always use Spanish onions when making this dish and it is the best. My friends all asked me for the recipe.

My food coop gives waaaay toooo many onions, yellow & white. I use a mandoline to slice the onions and cram my crock pot full over the brim. Put a colander on top because you want all the liquid to evaporate. Stir the onions every couple of hours, or not if your sipping wine and playing your mandolin. 12 hours is minimum, might take a day, but in the end it melts down to a good quart or more of killer caramelized onions that can be bagged and frozen. Done right, you only do this once a year

Yes, you can freeze the onions.But why not double your mileage? Make ice cubes out of the juices.Pop one into another dish for an instant flavor boost that's still full of character--melt one and sautee asparagus in the liquid, add two into a marinade, or elevate a simple soup. The possibilities are endless.

Tried this. Much prefer The old-fashioned Julia Child method, which usually takes a couple of hours, 5lbs of onions, a bit of butter, a bit of olive oil, start covered, then once the onions start to give up their liquid, uncover, crank the heat up a tiny bit, and stir every five minutes. Ties you to the stove, for sure, but the result is much richer. I make batches then portion out into freezer bags and freeze (which they do, beautifully).