Cooking question: What method could I use to saute onions without turning the final dish a nasty grey color?

You gotta cook the onions until they turn a golden color at a moderate temperature so they do not burn on the edges
It takes 15–20 minutes

Use roasted beef shin bones maybe with meat on, cook until meat falls off bone. Add meat to soup pot, deglaze roasting pan with red wine and scrap all pieces & bit from pan add to soup.

Gray soup makes me think you made mushroom soup instead of onion.

hmm, add turmeric?

No @Tropical_Willie. I don’t put mushrooms in my French onion soup. I didn’t realize that it had to be the onions turning it grey until my stuffing turned out grey too.
Where does the sauteeing fat come from in beef bones? How does that work?

@Raggy…I want to ask you what tumeric would do, but in a decade+ of knowing you I’m afraid you’re yanking my chain. sniff.

It is a yellow spice, that is most commonly used as food colouring.

What taste does it add?

I have always able sauteed mine to golden brown color, but then again, I use olive/sesame oil while cooking it slowly. You can always use red onion if regular onion keeps on giving you the greyish color.

I don’t know what “regular” onions are. I use yellow onions because they seem to have a snappier taste, but I can sure change.
Will olive oil give the same richness that butter does?

I don’t think red onions would make good soup. Not enough flavor. I only use them raw.

Maybe you are sautéing on too low a heat? Are you waiting for them to be slower cooked, translucent, and sweet? Or, are you browning the onions on a higher heat?

I’m just guessing that how you cook the onions might be the trick.

Maybe it’s the butter? I never cook onions in butter. I use a little oil, or the fat left over from cooking meat in the same pan just before. You could add the butter separately from the onions maybe. I don’t know for sure it will help though.

Regular onion here are the most common and cheapest variant, I guess you can say they have yellow-ish flesh and light broze outer husk.

If you use Olive oil it’ll be less richer (and a bit more fruity) than butter but I’m sure you can still add butter separately in to the soup. Surely there are other spices that you use in the soup so even with the absence or lack of butter you can still compensate the flavor with other things. Now I want to be invited for your soup hehe jk!.

Are you caramelising the onions enough? They should be a rich dark golden brown colour.

You can mix oil and butter. Butter will add flavour, and oil helps stop the butter from burning.

What I do is cook on a higher heat initially in oil for a few minutes, then add butter, reduce the heat to very low, and cover the pan—and then wait.

Caramelising onion isn’t a quick process or a simple matter of just browning them. I’d say at least 30 minutes of cooking.

Where did red onions come in to the discussion @Call_Me_Jay?

Here we have white onions, yellow onions and red onions @Unofficial_Member. I only use yellow onions. They all appear to be equally common.

@Kropotkin I cook them slowly through the whole process. And yeah, you don’t want them brown, just translucent. I have half an onion already chopped,from yesterday, that I’m going to fry up today in olive oil to eat. I’ll see how it tastes.

Add Kitchen Bouquet for color and seasoning.

You sound like a spammer, @Tropical_Willie!

I use sweet onions. Butter and olive oil heated in the pan. Add chopped onions. Saute on fairly high heat until golden brown, probably 15–20 minutes like @josie wrote.

I know how to saute them.

If you only saute them to translucent, you end up with gray. There wasn’t anything brown, like Kitchen Bouquet or caramel coloring.

Oh! OK. That Kitchen Bouquet looks like smoke sauce. What is it?

Colored liquid made of caramel coloring and spices.

….Well, for French Onion soup, after I saute them they simmer in the crockpot for about 9 hours in beef broth. If I got that Kitchen Bouquet, should it be added while they’re sauteing?

After . . .

If I brown the onions won’t they be overcooked and chewy? I got the Kitchen Bouquet.

Overcooked? But they turn to mush !