Hi Everyone, Sweat is one of the least appetizing words when it comes to food and cooking, but sweated onions are a key part to cooking many dishes.
To sweat onions means to cook chopped or sliced onions on low heat until they are softened, tender, and translucent. As the onions cook on the low gentle heat, they become sweeter. Sweated onions never develop colour or rather they are never intended to advance to the stage of getting a colour as that will then impact on the flavour and colour of dish in which it is to be used. For example, colourless sweated onions – as unappetizing as it sounds – are a key base for white sauces, risottos, sautéed vegetables and shine rice among other things.
There are different approaches to sweating onions and all are workable as they inevitably lead to the same end results – softened,