Caramelized onions improve everything from pastas and potato casserole to chip dips and, of course, French onion soup. But their sweet, complex flavor can come with a cost—sometimes more than an hour of careful cooking over a low flame.
In this video, part of our "Kitchen Smarts" series on our YouTube channel, Cook’s Illustrated test cook Lan Lam shares our technique for preparing caramelized onions in less than half of that time. To do this, we reviewed the science and questioned each step of the traditional approach. Here are some of our findings: