Kitchen Tips - Caramelized Onions

I'm getting a little lazier in my old age and not as interested in waiting for things.  Case in point - caramelized onions.  I love the sweet earthy taste of onions that have been quietly simmering for a half hour, developing all of their rich sugars, making me fall in love.  Sigh.  Yummy yum.

What I don't love is that half hour of babysitting, stirring, adjusting the heat to make sure it's not burning.  It has become tedious, so I went in search of an alternative.  And found it!  Oven-roasted onions.

I peeled and quartered a bunch of onions, threw them in a cast iron skillet, drizzled with oil, salt and pepper, a little stir.

I popped them into a 400-degree oven and let them go for 15 minutes.  I stirred them.  I let them go for another 15 minutes, turned the oven off and left them in there for another 40 minutes.  And that was it.

Yep, no babysitting and they were fabulous.  I now plan to make these every week or so, keep them in the fridge, and then throw them in whenever I need awesome onions.

This is what I made using these onions this week:

Gourmet Grilled Cheese (with green chiles, artichoke, mozzarella)

Kale/Black Bean Saute with Egg

Egg White Omelet with Zucchini, Olives, and Dried Chillies

The caramelized onions really took these easy cafe-style meals up a notch into the gourmet-tasting category with so very little work on my part.  That's my kind of payback.

I'd love to hear your ideas for using caramelized onions, so please feel free to share.