Cooking onions longer at a lower heat results in soft and golden brown onions. This breaks down the natural sugars, so the onions taste extra sweet. We recommend using butter for the best flavor.
You want to use a neutral vegetable oil like canola because it can cook at higher heat without smoking, and won't impart any flavor—the goal here is to let the rich essence of the caramelized onions shine through.
To Make Sauteed Onions
Heat a large skillet on medium-high heat. Add the oil and butter. Once melted, add the onion slices and arrange evenly in the pan. Sprinkle the onions with the sugar and a pinch of salt and cook for about 10 minutes.
Heat a medium size nonstick pan over low - medium heat. Add Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Spain, and gently heat, add onions. Cover pan and let cook over low heat, stirring periodically so the onions cook evenly. Continue to cook until the onions are evenly browned and caramelized.
When cooking over very high heat, use oil, which is less likely to burn. When sautéing with medium-high heat, you may opt for butter, which adds a nice flavor. However, the milk solids in the butter can burn, or brown, affecting the color and taste of your food.
When used in cooking, both butter and olive oil help carry the flavors of the food, and warming them accentuates this property. Butter is smooth and creamy, adding a dairy richness that no oil can match. Olive oil provides a unique flavor and aroma. Together, they enhance the flavor of your foods.
Swapping olive oil for butter cuts saturated fat. Plus, good olive oil adds a wonderful, nuanced flavor to baked goods and keeps them moist. Olive oil also contributes to a special, textured "crumb." To help you with your holiday baking, we've assembled a Q&A on baking with olive oil.
This idea that it's not a good idea to cook over high heat with olive oil is fairly common. For a lot of people, the concern is one of health, specifically that olive oil, with its relatively low smoke point of 325 to 375°F (165 to 190°C), degrades more than other oils when exposed to high heat.
Chefs cook with extra virgin olive oil because it has a high smoke point, which can offer a higher heat temperature without smoking or burning. This makes it ideal for sauteing, frying, and even baking. Extra virgin olive oil also has a unique flavor that enhances the taste of food.
This is because olive oil is the only oil can that can withstand high temperatures (180°C) without degradation or losing its properties, and because it is an oil that creates a crusty layer which enhances the flavor of foods while preventing it from being soaked with fat.
By mixing oil and butter together, you can increase the smoke point and the flavor. It really is the best of both worlds. The fat in the butter will still burn eventually, but the oil will help to dilute the nasty burnt taste that we absolutely do not want in our food (via Serious Eats).
Lots of fried egg stans say butter is best. Thanks to its high concentration of fat, butter has a unique taste and creamy texture. It's great for high heat pan-frying and can prevent your eggs from sticking to the pan.
The more fat in the pan, the more the onions will fry rather than soften. (Okay, you can fry them a little.) You can use just oil, or a combination of butter and oil—the choice is yours!
Corn Oil. Refined corn oil is often used in frying, thanks to its smoke point of 450°. It has a neutral flavor, and is used frequently in commercial kitchens because of its low price point.
Due to its high smoke point, vegetable oil is the best oil for deep frying. Canola oil and peanut oil are other popular options. While vegetable oil, canola oil, and peanut oil are the most popular oils for deep frying, there are several other oil options you can choose: Grapeseed Oil.
This is optional. Soaking onions in water for 15-20 minutes helps to neutralize the flavors of the onion and lessen the “bite”. It also brings out a sweet flavor and makes them a bit crunchier.
While the TV chef does love to drizzle a bit of olive oil over a nice salad, he says that rubbing it all over his body is what keeps his skin looking so youthful. Jamie, 42, is a "massive believer" in swapping extra virgin olive oil for expensive moisturisers. And he's even used the trick on three of his five children.
Italians cook pretty much everything with olive oil. We use it to cook, to fry, and to make cakes; we even make ice cream from it (have you tried it?
If you are going to eat fried foods, fry them in olive oil. In fact, olive oil is an excellent frying oil. The fatty acid composition and the natural antioxidants in the oil give olive oil thermal resistance and protect the oil from breaking down under heat.
Olive oil actually has a relatively high smoke point and is a safe, reliable option for frying. On top of that, it is one of the healthiest cooking staples around. Olive oil has been named “the healthiest fat on Earth,” in part because of its unique ability to reduce the risk of heart disease.
Multiple peer-reviewed studies have shown that olive oil is the best oil for frying. Olive oil outperformed vegetable, peanut, corn, soybean, sunflower and canola oils.
If an oil is heated beyond its smoke point, it gives off toxic smoke. Because olive oil has a low smoking point, cooking with olive oil runs the risk of creating smoke that contains compounds that are harmful to human health. You may not even notice that you are breathing in this toxic smoke.
When you cook, solid margarine or butter is not the best choice. Butter is high in saturated fat, which can raise your cholesterol. It can also increase your chance of heart disease. Some margarines have some saturated fat plus trans-fatty acids, which can also be bad for you.
Like any other oil, olive oil is a processed, concentrated fat extract and thus has lost most of the nutritional value of its original form (the olive itself). If you want some nutritional value, you will find it by eating the whole olive—not by consuming it in its almost unrecognizable extracted oil form.