Caramelized Onions

I bought a 10 pound bag of onions at Costco a few months back. Surprisingly, they kept pretty well in the bottom of my cupboard. But also surprisingly, I did not go through the onions as quickly as I thought I would. So I needed to find a way to use the onions and figured caramelized onions could do the trick.

Boy, did they! I found an epic recipe that makes incredible caramelized onions. The onions are perfect in all sorts of recipes from salads and sandwiches to pizza toppings to adding to pasta and stews to making a fast and delicious French onion soup. These onions are so much more flavorful than plain sautéed onions. Now I just may keep buying 10 pound bags of onions knowing I've got this magic recipe in my back pocket. 

Ingredients

• 4 white, yellow, or red onions
• 2-4 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1.5 tsp sugar
• 1/4 cup red wine
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 2-4 tbsp water

Directions

• Peel and clean the onions then cut them thinly in the pole to pole direction. This helps keep the slices in uniform length and thinness.
• Heat a stock pot or Dutch oven on medium low heat with the olive oil. Reserve some for adding later if need be.
• Add the onions and begin to sweat down. Add half of the salt now to speed up the process. Also, add more oil if need be to keep the pot and onions from drying out.
• After about 15-20 minutes of cooking, the onions should now begin to soften and become transuluscent. 
• Add the remaining ingredients except the water. Continue cooking on medium low heat stirring every 5 minutes to so.
• Slowly the liquid should evaporate and the onions should go from white translucent color to reddish brown getting darker as they cook longer.
• The bottom of the pan may dry out. You can tell when the sound of the onions cooking changes. This could cause burning and charring which is not wanted. This is where the reserve water comes in. Add 1 tbsp at a time and stir the onions around to remoisten. Let them dry out again before adding more water, again 1 tbsp at a time.
• Continue cooking the onions for 40-60 min until they reach the desired color, consistency, and flavor.
• Use right away in a recipe or store in an air tight jar or container in the fridge for up to a week.