How to Carmelize Onions

• Olive oil
• Sweet yellow or white onions
• Good white port wine reduction wine or wine vinegar
• A bit of brown sugar
• Salt

Determine how many onions you will need. Caramelizing significantly reduces the volume of the onions so even if you start out with a pan full of raw onion, they will cook down substantially. For most purposes, one onion per person serves as a good rule of thumb.

Find a large, heavy skillet. A heavy non-stick or well-seasoned iron skillet is best.

Get sweet yellow or white onions. After cleaning the onion of the dry skin and the root and stem tips, cut the onion in half, top to bottom. Then slice the onion, flat side down, to make thin strips of onion. Make sure to separate the layers.

Pour enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the skillet plus about a tablespoon more. Heat the skillet on high until the oil is very hot but not smoking. Add the brown sugar to your desired taste.

Add the onions all at once and reduce the heat to low-medium low.

• If you are doing lots of onions at once, they may pile high in the skillet. With time, they will cook down.
• Alternatively, you can caramelize the onions in small batches; this will help them to be more caramelized than steamed.

Using a spatula, turn (toss) the onions so that all the pieces get some oil on them.

Continue to turn the onions with the spatula about every 8 to 10 minutes. If some of the onion appears to be burning, move the onions to the side and add more oil (one or two tablespoons at a time) and stir the onions into the fresh oil.

Remove the onions, turn off the heat and add a little water or white wine to the pan to deglaze it and get the delicious dark brown glaze that has cooked to the pan. Use only a little liquid, no more than 3 to 4 tablespoons, to deglaze. Then stir the resulting glaze into the onions.