Impress Everyone You Know With Caramelized Onion Bread
Like any reasonable person, I love garlic bread, but it’s not the only onion-based bread you can make and enjoy. Like their cousin, onions can be made into a sweet and savory, irresistible bread filling. All you need is oil, onion, heat and time.
Caramelized Onion Bread delivers exactly what it promises: a sweet, jammy onion flavor on a slice of your favorite bread (I used challah). It is very similar to garlic bread, only it tastes like sweet and savory onion sauce rather than sweet and tangy garlic. You can eat it along with spaghetti like garlic bread, or you can eat a few pieces separately, which is what I just did.
To make caramelized onion bread, you will need two small onions, a dab of butter, some salt, and monosodium glutamate. MSG is technically optional, but it enhances the umami in onions. You can also use cheese, but I encourage you to enjoy this bread in its simplest form before you make it. Let the bow shine. Let them be very sweet and satisfying, and let yourself indulge in this simple pleasure before you start with the gilding of the lilies.
Caramelized onion bread
Ingredients:
- 1 stick butter (salted or unsalted)
- 2 small onions of any color
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1/2 teaspoon table salt or fine sea salt
- Large pinch of MSG
- Bread of your choice, cut into thick slices
Remove a piece of butter from the refrigerator and let it warm up to room temperature (when pressed, it should not resist). Slice the onion as thin as possible. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over low heat (as hot as your stove can handle). Add the onion and salt, then toss to coat the onion with the oil. Let the onion caramelize for at least an hour. Don’t turn up the heat to speed up the process: this will result in crispy fried onions, which is not what we’re after.
Once the onion has caramelized, scrape it out of the pan and let it cool. Blend them with the oil and MSG using a food processor, standard blender, or immersion blender. Beat until you have a fairly smooth butter with small pieces of caramelized onion.
Take a thick slice of bread and lightly toast it, then brush the top with a thick layer of onion oil and return it to the toaster (or broiler or deep fryer). Saute until the small pieces of onion turn dark at the tips. Eat immediately.