Instant Pot Caramelized Onions
Caramelized onions are made so easy with the Instant Pot. They’re ready in about 45 minutes, start to finish, with minimal hands on time.
Do you love caramelized onions but hate all the hands-on time they take to make? They can take up to 40 minutes on the stove top with almost constant stirring so that they don’t burn. Who has the time?
Well the Instant Pot has changed all that.
With the Instant Pot you can have richly flavored caramelized onions with minimal hands-on time. The instant pot does most of the work with 20 minutes of pressure cooking.
Once the pressure cooking is finished, the onions cook on the sauté function for about another 20 minutes to allow the extra liquid to evaporate and to get that lovely golden brown color. This only requires occasional stirring from you.
The really great thing about these onions is that they are freezer friendly. I like to freeze them in zip-loc bags in 1/2 cup portions. That way I can easily pull out just the right amount that I need for a recipe.
By having caramelized onions in your freezer ready to go, there are so many recipes that you can make in a fraction of the time they’d normally take. These are some of my favorite recipes that come together in no time with the pre-made onions:
Don’t have an Instant Pot of your own to give these delicious onions a try? The good news is that I’ve teamed up with some other bloggers to give away an Instant Pot! You can find all the details and enter to win below.
Welcome to the 12 Days of Christmas Instant Pot Giveaway!
One lucky person is going to win an awesome 6-Quart Instant Pot Ultra. If you don’t have an Instant Pot yet, you’re missing out. This device is 10 appliances in one! Yes seriously, here’s what it can be used as:
- Pressure Cooker
- Slow Cooker
- Rice Cooker
- Cake Maker
- Yogurt Maker
- Egg Cooker
- Steamer
- Warmer
- Sauté
- Sterilizer
The 6-Quart Instant Pot Ultra set includes a steam rack, recipe booklet, serving spoon, soup spoon and measuring cup. Here are some of the new features:
- Altitude adjustment
- Cooking indicator
- Steam release reset button
Instant Pot Caramelized Onions
Caramelized onions are made so easy with the Instant Pot. They're ready in about 40 minutes, start to finish, with minimal hands on time.
Ingredients
- 3 lbs yellow onions
- 2 tbsp butter
- 3 tbsp olive oil, divided
- 1 tsp salt
Instructions
- Peel onions, cut in half lengthwise and then cut into thin strips crosswise.
- Melt butter and two tbsp olive oil on sauté function in the Instant Pot.
- Add onions and salt, tossing to coat in the fat.
- Drizzle remaining olive oil over the top of the onions.
- Cover and set for 5 minutes on the manual function.
- When finished, quick release the steam.
- Remove cover and drain any excess liquid.
- Return onions to pot and turn on saute function.
- Cook, stirring frequently for an additional 20 minutes, until liquid has evaporated and onions are a deep golden brown.
- Store tightly covered for up to a week in the refrigerator or freeze for up to 2 months.
Notes
If your freezing the onions, I recommend dividing them in to 1/2 cup portions and freeze in plastic freezer bags.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
20Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 58Total Fat: 3gSaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 2gCholesterol: 3mgSodium: 127mgCarbohydrates: 7gFiber: 1gSugar: 3gProtein: 1g
Instant Pot Giveaway
This giveaway has been organized by Juggling Act Mama and sponsored in part by the following bloggers:
- Walking on Sunshine Recipes
- Bowl Me Over
- Doodlecraft
- As For Me and My Homestead
- Suburban Simplicity
- Lisa’s Dinnertime Dish
- One Creative Mommy
- Blogghetti
- An Affair From the Heart
- Hezzi-D’s Books and Cooks
Official Rules and Conditions: One winner will receive a 6-quart Instant Pot Ultra. No cash value. Open worldwide to adults 18+. One (1) winner will be chosen. Prize must be claimed within 48 hours of announcement or a new winner will be drawn. Prize will be delivered electronically. All entries will be verified. This giveaway is in no way associated with Amazon, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, Rafflecopter, or any other entity unless otherwise specified. Giveaway ends 12/17/2018. Enter using the widget below.
Christmas Sweets and Treats
We’ve got a lot of yummy dessert recipes on the blog, but these are some of our most favorites for Christmastime:
- Tricolor Christmas Cake Pops
- Milk Chocolate Christmas Bark
- Christmas Snickerdoodles
- Mocha Truffles
- Gingerbread Cookie Dough Bark
- Peanut Butter Chocolate Dipped Cookie Dough Truffles
- White Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies
I love the Instant Pot. TY for the great recipe and the giveaway.
i forgot to say I want to make these Caramelized onions first thing when I win the Instant Pot.
This was terrible. Onions turned to complete mush
Same here.
Does it matter when you add the salt?
I always get the burn notice. I haven’t tried yet with 3 pounds all at once so maybe that’s it. I’ve been halving the recipe and it hasn’t worked twice.
me too! I always get the BURN notice!
We got the burn notice too. I think instant pots, you ALWAYS have to have at least one cup of water or liquid. I don’t know why this recipe doesn’t say that and they don’t tell you about the salt either.
This did not work, the bottom started to burn even with constant stirring, so I had to transfer to a pan. The onions were basically all liquid mush. I don’t mind so much for a dip that I am making but I wouldn’t use this method for something where I want the onions to see them.
I meant to say, I wouldn’t use this method for a recipe where I want to see the onions.
I don’t know how you could possibly freeze some for later; I made 3 lbs of onions and the recipe only yielded 1/2 cup of caramelized onions. Because I had to transfer to a pan after the pressure cook, the whole process took me 1 hr and 20 mins…so I don’t think it saved me any time.
Thanks for sharing this recipe. Your pictures just drew me in. I was very excited to try this recipe as I was looking for recipes in which to use some of the obscene amount of onions I had purchased. I used exactly 3 lbs of peeled yellow onions, which was about 13 small-medium onions. There was no need to add any liquid (some cooks said you needed some liquid when using the pressure cooker) because onions rendered a lot of liquid on their own.
Please revise the recipe for two items: 1. At what point do we add salt? I added salt during the sauté phase. 2. Please indicate at what setting to sauté, HIGH or LOW? I sautéed at a low setting not wanting to get a burn notification, but after 16 minutes, my onions were not getting a caramelized color. So I canceled the low setting and sautéed another 5 minutes at high to more or less get that warm color we want. However, that calls for constant stirring to avoid burning. I got a tasty 2 cups of product (is that the amount I’m supposed to have?), but it took a lot of stirring. Please advise how to do this more efficiently with the Instant Pot Duo Evo Plus.
Hi Lisa,
I tried your recipe and it was amazing and super simple. I added 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar while the butter is melting. This gives the onions a dark brown color without having to sauté them for hours, and enhances the flavor.
Terrible, turned my onions to mush! Should have cooked for less time in instant pot.
Gosh…they look like mush. Do people enjoy the taste and texture this way? I’m going to try the slow cooker method. Any one done both ways? Slow cooker vs. Pressure cooker?
I’m in the middle of sauté mode right now. I kind of freestyles it with half of a SUPER large onion, but enough, some garlic olive oil and 2-3tbsp of butter. Also did a small chop. High pressure for 20 ridiculous minutes (way too much). Started sauté on high to boil then lowered. I still have a bit of liquid so I’m about to just take out the onions and let the tiny remaining juice help with the flavor.
Just a heads up. You forgot to mention the heat settings specifically. This is maybe why a lot of others burned their onions. I don’t know. Either way. I’m going to enjoy this. Thanks for the help!
@Brandon ~ ~ Also, this is why I saved half of an onion so I could use the freshness of the when assembling my burrito. Gotta love it.
Epic fail. If only I’d read the comments first. Turned to mush, transferring to a skillet before tossing just in case……
@Lee, I cut the IP time to 2 minutes. Worked well.
August 20, 2022.
Thank you community for these excellent comments. I used the instant pot and as soon as it said ‘burning’ I turned it off and did a quick release and had excellent results. I then lightly sorted for a few minutes as the colour was excellent and then added the salt. I agree that the recipe should probably reflect our comments as overall it does work and saves a lot of time but needs tweaking
sautéed
I just made this recipe for the first time. I loved how easy, simple and delicious the caramelized onions turned out. Thank you !
@Angie Morton, I’m so glad to hear this! Thanks for your comment!
Nice recipe
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This is a new comment for an old post so it probably won’t get fixed, but your link the French onion dip leads to the French onion soup. The correct link is https://lisasdinnertimedish.com/french-onion-dip/