Grilled onions are full of luxurious taste and flavor. They are quick and easy to make, and their high vitamin C and nutritional content make them healthy to eat as well.
One of the main bonuses from a preparation point of view is that this recipe contains very few ingredients. All four of those ingredients are easy to come by, and as always there are always alternatives to experiment with in order to give your grilled onions dish that extra flavor.
We recommend using a cast-iron griddle for grilling onions. Cast-iron provides a good distribution of heat, and is also resistant to corrosion, so it can really handle whatever you cook in it.
You can also use a grill (as the name suggests) to create grilled onions. You may be asking - what is the difference between the two? And what is the best way to cook grilled onions? Find the answer to that and other frequently asked queries below.
This is a question you have most likely been asking yourself throughout this recipe so far. The two names may sound similar, and they do perform similar functions, but there are also differences between the two. Our article covering Griddles Vs. Grills takes a more in-depth look into their differences, but we will summarise its main points.
Overall, both are viable options when grilling onions.
If you are cooking outside with your household as part of a BBQ, we would recommend using a grill. If you have more time on your hands and are cooking inside, a griddle would be better.
You can cook healthy food with a griddle, provided you don't use too much oil (in this grilled onions recipe, we recommend using a small amount of olive oil).
Grilling food will help to remove excess fat, as it drips down the raised ridges. With a griddle, it can end up baking the food itself, as the heat source of the griddle causes dry heat.
Instead of simply grilling the onions, you may want to go one step further and caramelized your onions.
Caramelization is the process of browning sugar, therefore making your food more sweet and sticky. It requires more time, as the onions need to be cooked slowly, which means that using a grill is less suitable given the high temperatures it operates at.
While our grilled onions recipe recommends using sweet onions to reach that perfect taste and flavor, you can use a range of different onions for this recipe.
To caramelize onions, you need to:
Grilled onions can be used as a side serving for a variety of different and popular dishes to create a perfect meal. You could place them on a sandwich or burger, serve alongside different meats, like beef or chicken, or even on top of mashed potatoes.
You could also slice the onions in thinner strips and create soup. French onion soup is a popular dish that can be served with grilled onions.
They can also be used in stir-fries or pizza toppings - caramelized onions are perhaps better suited to pizza toppings due to their enhanced taste and flavor but both types work exceptionally well.
Although we have given instructions for basic cuts of onions in our recipe above, and covered how to grill onions, completing a perfect cut can be quite challenging, especially for those who haven't had a lot of practice cutting onions.
There are different ways to cut onions.
You need to lay your onion down widthwise, before using a knife to cut it from the top - with the stem end down - towards the root. You must then ensure that you do not cut away the root end, before cutting the stem end, and remove any papery skin (if your onion has it) away from the remainder of the onion that is left.
Then, lay one half of the onion down before cutting into thin slices. You can do this either widthwise or lengthwise, but we recommend lengthwise as it is easiest. The ideal size is between 1/8 and 1/4 of an inch per slice.
Repeat this process for the other half of the onion.
Grilling onions in an oven is essentially another way to caramelize them.
One way is to use the broiler setting on your oven - this requires the onions to be wrapped in foil beforehand and placed on the top shelf of your oven.
On a broil setting, the oven turns on its top burner and keeps it on. Not all ovens have a broiler setting take a look at your oven's instruction manual for further details.
Grilled onions will last for between 3-5 days in a refrigerator.
You need to be careful not to leave cooked onions at room temperature for too long - they need to be thrown out if they stay out for more than 2 hours.
Grilled onions are a delightful dish that can be enjoyed all year round, and with the option of caramelizing them, there are a number of possibilities to add even more taste and flavor!
Now that you have the perfect grill onions down, check out this post with 12 Grilling Tips so that you can really wow your friends and family at the next BBQ!