Crockpot Caramelized Onions

Crock pot Caramelized Onions

For your next big cookout, make your guests mouth water by serving up a platter of these scrumptious caramelized onions for their burgers, brats, or steaks, and they'll never believe you did  these in the crock pot with very little effort!  I can promise you  the rave reviews  will be worth the 5 whole minutes you spent making this dish!

Bratwurst with Caramelized Onions (and peppers!)

I'll give you a bonus recipe at the bottom for turning these onions into a scrumptious French Onion Soup, that will knock your socks off. (Thanks to Southern Living for these recipes!)

Boy do I wish you could have smelled my house when I came home from errands after starting this in the crockpot. Wow, my house smelled wonderful. What is it about cooking onions and peppers that does that?

Ok, let's get you the recipe:

Printable Recipe
Caramelized Onions
Makes 2 cups

Ingredients:
2 bacon slices
2 tablespoons melted butter (I used real butter)
2 medium-sized sweet onion, sliced (about 4 1/2 cups)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper

Directions:

• Cook bacon in a skillet or microwave until crisp. Remove bacon (and use for some other recipe). Reserve 1-2 Tablespoons of the bacon drippings for this recipe.

Jan's Tip: for a cook out,I usually  cook up a pound or so of bacon for people to put on their burgers. So make your bacon ahead of time so you can use the drippings for the onions and then just reheat the bacon when it's time for the cookout. (plus you now will have two of your toppings cooked  and checked off  your list early)

• Combine drippings, melted butter, and remaining ingredients in a crock pot, stir well to coat onions.

• Cover and cook on high 4 hours. Serve or if your crock pot has a warm setting, you can switch it to warm till ready to serve.

 ( I actually added diced green peppers to the pot, after I switched it to warm, because I knew my hubby and son would love the peppers., but I cooked the onions first by themselves.)

Caramelized Onion  Turkery Burger 

Bonus Recipe:

French Onion Soup
Makes 5 cups

Ingredients:
1 batch of caramelized onions (see recipe above)
2 cans (10 1/2 oz. each) beef consomme
1/4 cup dry white wine or white wine substitute.

Optional:(Or very necessary if you ask me!)
1/4 cup or so of shredded Gruyere cheese
Croutons.

Stir consomme and white wine (or substitute) into cooked onions in the crock pot.
Cover and cook on high 15 minutes or just until heated through.

To serve, sprinkle each bowl of soup with shredded cheese and croutons.