Onion jam is a sweet or savory condiment made by caramelizing onions with herbs, spices, and liquids like vinegar or wine. It can be served with bread, cheese, or cold cuts and doesn’t require pectin to set.
Onion jam is a condiment that features cooked onions as the main ingredient. It can be served with a wide variety of dishes, including breads, cold cuts, and cheeses. To make it, onions are combined with liquids and spices to prepare a savory or sweet cream similar to jams or fruit preserves. The natural sugar in onions helps give this plant-based jam a layer of sweetness that can be enhanced with fruit juice, wine, or added sugar.
The process is similar to jam with fruit. To make onion jam, you choose the onions you want to use for the recipe and cook them with a blend of herbs, spices, and water or vinegar. The onions are then placed in a jar or other container for storage until needed.
Onion jam recipes often use red, yellow, or white onions. For sweet jams, one might go for the Vidalia onion from Georgia, which is known as an exceptionally sweet variety. When this type is not readily available, adding sugar to white or yellow onions will allow the flavor of a naturally sweet onion to be replicated. The tiny pearl onion, a specialty variety, works in most recipes that call for white or yellow onions. Some onion varieties, such as red onions, are good choices for savory onion jam or onion relish recipes.
To prepare an onion for jam, you need to remove the outer husk of the onion and cut off the ends of the bulb. The next step is to slice or dice the onion, depending on the recipe directions. The most common method of cooking onions requires placing the onion slices or chunks in a skillet or pan coated with a good quality vegetable oil.
Making onion jam requires caramelizing or extracting the natural sugars in an onion by slowly cooking it over medium heat. While cooking the onions, stir them frequently to prevent the sugar from burning. Common onion jam recipes call for a cook time of at least 30 minutes to soften and caramelize the onions. When making large batches of onion jam, it may be necessary to cook the raw onions in several small batches to ensure even cooking.
Onion jam recipes might call for sugar, salt, vinegar, and spices like chiles, garlic, rosemary, or thyme. Wine, sherry or berry juices are recipe additions that enhance the sweetness of the jam. Unlike fruit-based jams, this product doesn’t require pectin, a gelling agent often used to set jams.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
