TIL: You Can Caramelize Onions In The Oven

Caramelizing onions is a pain in the ass. Despite what some recipes might tell you, no, it's not going to take 20 minutes. You're typically looking at around 45 minutes at least, and that involves enough babysitting to render you useless for too many other tasks. This is why the discovery by Bon Appetit that you can caramelize onions in the oven might be a total game changer.

The recipe does come with a caveat that no, the onions won't necessarily be uniformly browned; some will be darker than others, but honestly, who cares? Are you aiming exactly for a Crayola version of burnt sienna? It's all shades of brown from here. We all know that brown food is the best food.

All you have to do is heat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Then you toss thinly sliced onions with water (for steam) and some olive oil, salt them up, then roast them until they're the color you're looking for, stirring every 10 minutes or so. The process will take around 40 to 50 minutes.

In the meantime, I'd be getting a nice hot pot of beef stock ready to go with some thyme and sherry so I have a place to dump those suckers right after they get out of the oven. There are very few joys in this world that match that of a nice bowl of French onion soup, and I for one, am always ready to dig in.