When I think of slow food, one of the first things that comes to mind is caramelized onions. Time is the main ingredient for making delicious caramelized onions. Slow and steady wins the race—too fast and you risk burning them.

For this, the ingredients list is simple. You just need onions, fat, and time, and maybe a splash of wine.

Ingredients

onions
butter or olive oil (or both)
splash of wine

Wine is really nice. It helps with the caramelizing process by adding sugars.

Preparation

Heat up a thick bottom steel frying pan on medium low heat.

Once it’s heated, add some butter or olive oil. Make sure it doesn’t sizzle too much because you don’t want to burn the fat.

Add the onions and coat them well in the butter. I like to drizzle olive oil on top of them too.

Cover the frying pan with a lid, locking in the moisture.

Mix every 2 to 5 minutes to make sure the onions don’t stick to the bottom of the pan and to make sure the heat isn’t too high. You want caramelized onions, not burnt onions. Do this for about 15 to 20 minutes.

Add a splash of wine. Either red or white will work. Mix it in well and cover. Continue with the process of mixing every 2 to 5 minutes. The wine will make them caramelize faster and they will start to darken.

When they’re dark, take them off the heat.

Now that you’ve made caramelized onions, you can add them as a topping to things like steak or sandwiches.

Pack up the rest and store in the fridge.