Continued in this post

Introduction

I recently started cooking again. While my cooking schedule deserves its own post, this post was inspired by one particular recipe. From the recipe for Caprese burgers:

Caramelize Onion and Toast Buns

Place a large non-stick pan over medium heat and add 2 tsp. olive oil. Add onion to hot pan and stir occasionally until browned. 10-13 minutes. …

As much as I liked this recipe, this is a lie, a persistent one, at that. There's no way an onion will properly caramelize in such short time.

So how long does it take to caramelize¹ onions?

According to one well-known investigative piece (as much as an investigative piece on caramelizing onions can be, I guess), from which I will borrow a lot in this post, it takes at least around 30 minutes to caramelize onions. On normal heat and without constant stirring, it requires 45 minutes to caramelize. From one of famed chef Julia Child's french onion soup recipes:

When the butter has melted, stir in the onions, cover, and cook slowly until tender and translucent, about 10 minutes. Blend in the salt and sugar, increase the heat to medium high, and let the onions brown, stirring frequently until they are a dark walnut color, 25 to 30 minutes.

This implies the time to caramelize to be 35 to 40 minutes total.

Is this really a common falsehood?

So, like, big deal. Some recipe you found sort of lied about the time it would take to actually caramelize onions. Is this even a thing? Well, rightfully skeptical reader, I found 3 recipes lyings about onions. From the previously linked article (broken links and all):

As long as I’ve been cooking, I’ve been reading various versions of this lie, over and over. Here’s Madhur Jaffrey, from her otherwise reliable Indian Cooking, explaining how to do the onions for rogan josh: “Stir and fry for about 5 minutes or until the onions turn a medium-brown colour.” The Boston Globe, on preparing pearl onions for coq au vin: “Add the onions and cook, stirring often, for 5 minutes or until golden.” The Washington Post, on potato-green bean soup: “Add the onion and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until golden brown.”

That's right; n=3. Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

y tho

Your guess is as good as mine. I'll grandstand anyway. My guess is that recipes don't want to be too extra. Cooking from scratch is already a luxury to many people, so why add up to 45 minutes to your easy-to-follow, oh-so-simple, oh-so-delicious, please-like-comment-and-share recipe? Can you even taste the difference between a mildly browned onion and peak browned onion? I certainly can't, or at least not yet.

Conclusion

If you have the room for it, try starting caramelizing onions at the beginning of cooking and let it brown as you do the rest of the cooking. See if it makes a difference; it might not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (btw I think emojis deserve their own post too).