Caramelized Onions

I promised.  I use these for EVERYTHING.  It started because I never liked onions as a kid.  When I moved out and actually started cooking for myself, I discovered that I liked the taste that the onions gave but the pieces still made me gag.  I used to buy the dehydrated onions and rehydrate them.  That does get expensive though and it doesn't work in all recipes.  I discovered that I didn't mind onions as long as they were cooked to death.  This, of course, took a lot of time to do right.  It also smelled up the house and drove my husband insane.

When I stopped working, I would do large batches of onions every once in a while during the day.  The smell does still kind of linger though.  Finally, inspiration struck.  The slow cooker.  The slow cooker works perfectly because, well, its slow.  I've tried cooking onions at a higher speed but I end up with a burned mess.  The low heat seems to give them the time to develop really good flavor too.  I plug in the slow cooker outside, which appeases my husband, but it does make the cooking times vary.  I live in Southern Nevada.  In the summertime, its only slightly cooler than hell.  It effects cooking times.

This is all it takes.  I use 1 five pound bag of sweet onions and 1 stick of butter.  You can substitute the onions, regular onions might take more time to caramelize.

In goes the butter.  I have this awesome little crockpot that I got from my grandmother that is perfect for this. Its more like an electric skillet than a regular crockpot but I've done this in a regular crockpot too.

Dice the onions and just throw them in on top of the butter.  I wouldn't do it in the food processor because you will end up with onion juice, but it doesn't have to be a perfect dice either.

Five pounds of diced onions.  The butter is still solid, so you don't even have to stir.

Turn in on high.

This is after about 3 hours.  I stir every couple of hours.  If it starts looking dry, add a cup or so of water.  You don't want it to burn, just caramelize.

This is after about 24 hours.  I never added any water to it.  I didn't really do much of anything to it so even though its a lot of time, its next to active time.

This will last a couple of weeks.  If I have a recipe that calls for onions, I take this out of the fridge and throw in a spoonful.  I don't really know how long it would keep - mine never lasts more than a couple of weeks.