Caramelised onions

[LordyGeordie]

Whenever i try and fry onions to get them caramelised i always end up with burnt, bitter onions, rather than the really sweet ones you get in restaurants.

What's the secret?

[Mowbray]

Pour a good glug of oil in the pan and heat.  Place onions in the pan on a low heat, just enough to hear from frying. Stir ever now and then.  this should take about 15 minutes.

Enjoy!

[i_go_comando]

 Being a chef i always use a good knob of butter or decent marg ( non of that low fat stuff as it contains too much water) and melt that in a pan till it starts to sizzle slowly, chuck your onions in and fry them on a low heat, if they get too hot remove from heat a little to cool down and carry on again! The secret is to take your time and not let the pan get too hot!

[maxd]

try a bit of brown sugar and a splash of balsamic vinegar. 

[Woodstock]

I'd go witrh the low heat and brown sugar theory.

[Tony Monero]

The correct method is to cook very very slowly in butter and oil. The reason for this is this releases the natural sugars in the onions. Just to confirm slow, I would probably cook them for a couple of hours. Do not add sugar as this is just falsifying the process and you will not get the same flavour. Also no offence to i_go_commando but never use margarine in cooking where butter is required because it tastes disgusting and the properties of it are different, but everything else he states is correct.

[Xollob]

Some good advice on this question. I agree with Tony on the butter - as far as I'm concerned, margarine is the Devil's earwax.

I've found that red onions are often sweeter than white.

Part of the problem seems to be the "nutritionally correct" recipes that are rife today - those that start off with "Take one and a half teaspoons of oil...".  
Good food often requires lashings of good quality oil/butter, and caramelised onions is a prime example.
If in doubt, add another splash/dollop.