Red onion marmalade
This preserve is an exercise in patience: over a kilo of onions must caramelise for forty minutes over low heat to lose their water, soften and take on a deep, caramel sweetness. Cutting that stage to twenty minutes gives you fried onions, not caramelised ones — and the difference is obvious at first taste.
Your own work in that: 0 min.
- Slicing the onions 15 min
- Caramelising 40 min
- Reducing with wine 25 min
- Filling the jars 10 min
Step by step
0 / 5 doneSlice the onions evenly into half-moons
Halve the onions and slice them into 3 mm half-moons, always with the grain, from root to tip. Onion cut with the grain holds its shape through an hour of cooking; cut across it collapses into mush.
Ingredients: 1200 g red onions · 3 tbsp olive oil · 30 g butter · 1½ tsp salt
With the grain — only then do the strands survive an hour.Caramelise for forty minutes
Heat the oil with the butter in a wide pan, add the onions and salt and cook over medium-low heat for 40 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes. They collapse to a quarter of their volume and turn deep brown and sticky.
Ingredients: 1200 g red onions · 3 tbsp olive oil · 30 g butter · 1½ tsp salt
TipSalt added at the start draws water out of the onions, so they soften faster and then brown more evenly.
The onions collapsing to a quarter — the sign it is going well.Add sugar and wine
Add the brown sugar and cook 3 minutes until it dissolves and bubbles. Pour in the wine and scrape up the base — that is where the caramelised flavour sits, and none of it should be left in the pan.
Ingredients: 120 g brown sugar · 200 ml red wine · 80 ml balsamic vinegar · 2 tsp thyme · 2 pcs bay leaves · 1 tsp pepper
Reduce until thick
Add the balsamic, thyme, bay and pepper and cook uncovered for 25 minutes until the liquid evaporates and the marmalade is glossy and syrupy. A spoon drawn across the base should leave a trail that fills in only after a second.
Ingredients: 120 g brown sugar · 200 ml red wine · 80 ml balsamic vinegar · 2 tsp thyme · 2 pcs bay leaves · 1 tsp pepper
A glossy, syrupy mass with no free liquid.Fill the jars
Remove the bay leaves and spoon the hot marmalade into three scalded small jars (about 200 ml each). Seal, cool and refrigerate. It keeps a month in the fridge, six months in the freezer. Do not keep it in the larder — onion is a low-acid vegetable, and home processing does not protect against botulism bacteria.
Ingredients: 120 g brown sugar · 200 ml red wine · 80 ml balsamic vinegar · 2 tsp thyme · 2 pcs bay leaves · 1 tsp pepper
Before you start
What to serve it with
With burgers, a cheeseboard, goat cheese tart, roast meat and sandwiches. One of the most versatile savoury preserves there is.
Yellow onions work too
Yellow onions give a lighter, sweeter marmalade. Red ones are milder and give a deeper colour — hence their advantage here.
Without alcohol
Swap the wine for red grape juice and increase the balsamic to 100 ml. You then need 5 minutes more reduction.