Mulipurpose Onions
Since Hurricane Irma wiped out everything in my freezer, I have been on a mission to re-stock with homemade WFPB meals and “recipe helpers”. It’s a lengthy process, but so far, I have mushroom broth, blended lemons, whizzed up chipotle peppers, mashed potatoes and one lonely helping of soup! Last week I tried a new thing in my slow cooker which I already know will be repeated again and again.
Nothing but humble ordinary onions transformed in to something almost majestic by 10+hours in the slow cooker, giving them a deep caramel color and similar sweet complex flavor. I love this kind of hands-off cooking especially when the end product can be used in a multitude of different dishes; Today for example, I used a defrosted cube of these onions in a veggie-quinoa salad for my kids’ school lunch. But I can just as easily see myself reaching for them when I’m making a soup or sweating down vegetables for a curry. They’d be perfect in a tofu scramble too.
Because of the short ingredients list here, these really do differ from the ‘caramelized onions’ that we have become used to: these ones have no oil, no butter, no salt and certainly no sugar or syrupy sweetener and are none the poorer for these omissions because all the flavor comes from the onions’ natural sugars caramelizing slowly in their own juices.
Best of all now when I cook, I don’t have to brace for burning eyeballs and crying on to my cutting board, because my onions are already ready and waiting for me in the freezer! #winning
Multipurpose Onions
Ingredients
Instructions
- Peel and slice the onions into half moons about a quarter of an inch thick (any thinner and they would risk disintegrating!)
- Place in the slow cooker. You don't want the slow cooker to be too full
- Start the cooker on LOW setting for the 10hrs. That's it!
- After the time is up you will have beautiful and richly colored onions. If you want to keep cooking them down in to more of a jammy consistency, do it with the lid off and on HIGH so that the liquid will evaporate faster. You can stir intermittently to make sure that they are not burning and remove them when they are perfect for you.
- I have frozen mine in a silicone ice tray, ready for any and all recipes!
Notes
Someone on my instagram feed asked me about the consistency when freezing and defrosting, here is my response
When you are finished cooking there will likely be some liquid left over in the bottom of your crockpot. I used a slotted spoon and squeezed the onions against the side of the slow cooker before transferring them to an ice tray for freezing. I have since defrosted and used a few of these ice cubes and haven't had a problem with the consistency. I think the danger would occur if you tried to evaporate off all the liquid which would cause the onions to overcook and become too soft.
