I’ve been experimenting with a new base for fat-free sauces and dressings, and it has opened up so many new possibilities to me that I wanted to share it with you before I start inundating you with recipes that use it. It contains 3 ingredients, no soy or nuts, and is gluten-free.
It’s called Fat-Free Onion Cream and is so easy to make that a video can sum it up. So I made one.
It’s ridiculously easy and ridiculously good (if you like onions–more about that in a minute).
Let me be clear that I did not come up with this idea. I believe that honor goes to ChefSteps, though I found it on Food52. ChefSteps also has a cool video, but without my dirty oven in it.
Onion Cream is not a neutral sauce, so please don’t try to use it in sweet dishes. It tastes like onions. When you roast them, your whole house will smell like onions. So if you have onion-haters, tell them to get the heck out of the house while you’re making this. I love onions and the smell of roasted onions, so I was pretty much rolling around my kitchen floor like my cat Loki in a catnip garden.
Onion Ranch Dressing
So far I’ve used onion cream in Fat-Free Onion Ranch Dressing and an amazing Comeback Sauce, and I have many more bright ideas for this cream that I’ll be testing. But while I’m playing with it, I thought you could be too. So here’s the recipe. Be sure to leave a comment letting me know what you do with it.
Fat-Free Onion Cream
Ingredients
- 4 medium onions
- 3 teaspoons lemon juice or to taste
- 1/4 teaspoon salt or to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400F. Line a baking dish with parchment paper, if you like, to make cleanup easier. Place the onions in the dish and bake until soft all the way through. If you’re using a metal pan with no parchment, 45 minutes may be enough but for ceramic dishes, be prepared to add more time. Onions should be darkened on the outside and almost squishy.
- Allow the onions to cool until they’re comfortable to handle. Peel onions and discard peel and any discolored parts. Place onion “innards” in a high-powered blender along with lemon juice and salt. Blend until silky smooth. Check flavor and add more lemon juice or salt if necessary.
- Use to add creaminess and flavor to soups (such as tomato soup) and other dishes or as the base for salad dressings and sauces, like my Fat-Free Onion Ranch. Makes about 1 cup.
Notes
Nutritional info is approximate.
Enjoy!
Karen
March 31, 2016 at 7:28 pmSusan, this sounds great! Will try…
Barbara
March 31, 2016 at 7:59 pmThanks for this… can you freeze it?
Susan Voisin
March 31, 2016 at 8:02 pmYes. Refrigerate for a day and then freeze. (I don’t know why, just that was what the original chef said.) 🙂
Cadry
March 31, 2016 at 9:11 pmOh, my gosh! As a big onion fan, I can only imagine how delicious this must be in sauces.
Maria
March 31, 2016 at 9:11 pmWow, what a cool idea, Susan! And I love the video! So simple. I wouldn’t have any problem with the smell of roasted onions, either! Thank you, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with using this as an ingredient! xo
Nadege
March 31, 2016 at 10:10 pmThank you Susan! Brilliant recipe!
alexandra
April 1, 2016 at 5:25 amHave you tried this with red onions? I am looking forward to using this simple recipe.
Susan Voisin
April 1, 2016 at 7:49 amNo, just yellow. If you try red, please let me know what you think.
Lisa
April 1, 2016 at 8:59 amInteresting! Looking forward to hearing uses for this cream.
Susan
April 1, 2016 at 10:04 amWhat a great idea! I can’t wait to make some of this today. I can think of so many great uses! Thank you!
Chuck Underwood
April 1, 2016 at 10:35 amI love that this is Soy and Nut free. I just posted my Ranch Dressing earlier this week, and even put a disclaimer in the post that some people would not like it because it contained Cashews, but on the other hand if I used Soy I’d hear from those people as well. And what happened? All the nut haters were sure to comment – just like I knew they would. Sigh. But NOW there’s an alternative! Brilliant. And I LOVE onions. Thanks for this.
Emily
April 1, 2016 at 11:16 amI’ve been making versions of this to create salad dressings for some time. Will also roast garlic and veggies like carrots to whip all together. Add spices. Sometimes soaked nuts. I’m thinking I might try to use this aquafaba. I LOVE the smell of roasting or sauteed onions. Many layers 🙂
You have inspired me to experiment some more…
Con
April 1, 2016 at 1:55 pmI’ve got bad breath just from looking at this <3 😀
Florence
April 1, 2016 at 2:57 pmFlorence
Just made some and it’s probably good as is, but what would you suggest adding to it for a baked potato topping? Thx : )
Susan Voisin
April 1, 2016 at 3:06 pmI would probably add black pepper and maybe nutritional yeast (not a lot). If you want it creamier, a tablespoon or two of cashews would help. And any fresh herbs you have around. 🙂
Linda D
April 2, 2016 at 7:57 amI love the idea of this and love the video too. My next thought was I wonder if there’s a way to do the onions in the Instant Pot? 😉
Kathy Alexander
April 4, 2016 at 9:26 amOMG, this looks and sounds so good, I can’t wait to try it.
hungerszone
April 6, 2016 at 3:02 amExcellence Content! before i didn’t visited your site but when i surfing on google i have click on dis link nd what found !! a great post! i think am become fan of you!!
Randy Stanard
April 6, 2016 at 12:30 pmThis looks very good and I can see many uses. Thank you for posting!
Laina
April 6, 2016 at 2:32 pmHi Susan,
I loved the video! What an easy peasy recipe. Can’t get any easier than that!
Thanks so much. 🙂
Peter
April 6, 2016 at 3:18 pmI made this. I made up some onion pancakes with a poach egg on top. Mmm very nice. I allso put a small piece of ginger through a garlic press in another lot and wow that was really great in a potato soup
Nancy
April 6, 2016 at 3:39 pmThis is such a great idea. I can’t wait to make it. Fat free sometimes is a challenge when it comes to great flavor. This sounds like that won’t be an issue using this as a base.
Steven
April 6, 2016 at 10:01 pmSounds like these roasted onions can be the base for endless possibilities.
Any chance you could make a MiracleNaise dressing for use on a sandwich with this?
btw thanks for all the lovely recipes over the past years. You helped to make my whole foods plant based diet an exceptional experience.
Anvimurthy
April 7, 2016 at 5:14 amGreat sites and thanks for sharing very useful articles..
Marlena Sacca
April 7, 2016 at 5:12 pmThe cream of onions sounds great!
What kind of onions you prefer to use….sweet or yellow?
Thank you for the good work,
Chef Marlena
Susan Voisin
April 7, 2016 at 6:15 pmI like to use yellow because roasting makes them sweet enough for me, but I have to admit I haven’t tried using Vidalia or other sweet onions yet.
Dale Simpson
April 7, 2016 at 7:46 pmThis is a great idea. I tried it with sweet onions, putting 4 big onions in a glass dish (glass botton and top) then cooked for total of 8-9 mins in microwave in 2-4 min bursts. Then I let this cool and peeled the onions. I suggest cutting into quarters before microwaving or they will burst when the fluid inside starts boiling. I then peeled them (peeling quarters is also easier) and blended with lemon juice and a little salt. I think it is sweet and delicious and can not wait to try adding it to various soups, sauces etc. As a newcomer to low fat vegan, I compliment you on your website.
Nicole Rossetti le Strange
April 10, 2016 at 3:54 amThis looks and sounds amazing – why have I never thought of this? Thank you for sharing.
Oh, and bonus points for having a cat called Loki!
Carol
April 10, 2016 at 12:45 pmSusan, I used your “Onion Cream” in 2 recipes this week. THANK YOU!
For Pad Thai sauce, I usually use equal parts water, soy sauce and peanut butter (plus other spices). The Onion Cream became one of the equal parts. Couldn’t taste it at all, but it allowed the sauce to use less PB and was a bit thicker. Very nice.
Today I made a hummus salad dressing. Just regular hummus with extra lemon juice and some nutritional yeast and a whole cup of Onion Cream. No added sweetening was required and very low fat. The taste is fabulous!
Polly
April 10, 2016 at 4:53 pmJust successfully tried your ranch dressing.
Delicious! Not like the bottled stuff, but very good. Once again you knocked it out of the park!
Susan Voisin
April 10, 2016 at 5:11 pmI’m so glad you liked it!
Mary
April 11, 2016 at 3:06 pmYour onion cream sounds great. I’ve been eating onions baked this way my whole life. According to my mom, it’s an old Irish dish. I just place a piece of foil in the oven and bake as many as I’d like to have just like I would a potato. When finished baking, I take a fork and pull down the little root end and squeeze out the insides. They’re delicious just as they are or with a little salt and pepper sprinkled on.
Werner
April 13, 2016 at 11:24 amThis did not work out so well for me, could not get past the slimy, viscous texture. And, although the aroma while cooking was deliciously oniony, the taste was weird. After 45 minutes onions were not done, so did another good while. Perhaps I cooked them too long and the roasted skin permeated the flesh, giving it an off taste. If I try this again, I would use smaller onions, maybe yellow instead of white, and will be very careful not to over-roast and will omit the lemon juice. I ended up throwing in a few cashews to improve the texture and used it in a pasta sauce.
Julie
April 20, 2016 at 1:55 pmMay I suggest an alternative to heating up the oven? Peel and cut raw onions into even pieces, place in a glass bowl and microwave for 3-4 minutes (I only did 1.5 onions). Drop them into a HP mixer, add lemon juice and salt whir away and you have onion cream in minutes!
Mary S
April 30, 2016 at 11:23 amHave been doing something similar to this stovetop for a very long time, but mine isn’t that pretty white color. I cook chopped onions in some veggie broth until somewhat caramelized, than add more broth and let simmer until I have a nice golden onion puree–no blender required. Freezes great; that way I have a starch-free sauce/gravy thickener whenever I need it.
Nancy
May 6, 2016 at 9:02 amThank you for posting this! Love, love, LOVE it! I have made 3 batches so far: the last one was used to make a fat-free pesto. Using the whole amount of cream, I just added 2 cloves of garlic, 1/4 cup of nutritional yeast, 1 oz. of fresh basil and 2 handfuls of fresh baby spinach (enough to fill my 7 cup food processor) and processed until smooth. My husband said it was the best pesto he’s had since becoming vegan.
Kanupriya
May 16, 2016 at 3:22 pmHow long does this last if refrigerated ?
Susan Voisin
May 16, 2016 at 7:48 pmA week or two but it also freezes well.
Maria
June 18, 2016 at 12:35 amSusan, finally got to try this tonight–I had two rather large onions so halved the recipe–I was a little worried about how it would come out since I don’t have a high speed blender but it came out great–so tasty! And really very easy. Glad I got to give it a whirl before it gets too hot to use the oven. Thanks! 🙂
Katie
July 8, 2016 at 4:30 pmJust had to stop by to say that I made a batch of this onion cream and it’s amazing. So easy and versatile! I put a little bit in just about anything creamy I happened to be making including tofu mayo, hummus, your onion ranch dressing as well as my own recipe of vegan ranch, “cheese” sauces, and a pasta salad. It seriously improved every thing it was added to or when used as a substitution for something else. It’s a staple in my fridge from now on!
Marilyn Senders
September 27, 2016 at 10:32 amHi! I have been keeping a recipe blog for many years at marilyferecipes.blogspot.com, but in the last three months, my husband needed two stents. He was fine after the first was inserted and we went back to our normal active lives, but after the second, he is having angina, and we decided to change our lifestyle completely and have begun following the fat-free vegan diet in Dr. Esselstyn’s book and it seems to be producing great results right away. As I write this, four white onions are roasting in the oven. Thanks for being there with exactly what we needed!
Shefali
November 29, 2016 at 10:38 amThanks for this recipe! I made this but omitted the salt and lemon. This is a wonderful base for Indian curries that normally use a onion/garlic/ginger base that’s browned in oil. I used it in a turkey curry (obviously non-vegan), but this still significantly cuts down on the fat in the recipe. Would be great in a vegan curry as well.
And to those wondering, yes it does freeze well! And if you have an electric pressure cooker, you can dump this FROZEN with all your curry spices in the pot and have curry in an instant.
J'Marinde
January 1, 2017 at 12:37 amHow do I keep/store this and for how long? Thank you!
Susan Voisin
January 1, 2017 at 2:42 amIn the refrigerator, it should last a week or two. If the freezer, it will last several months.
Kristin
June 21, 2017 at 10:47 amI’ve done roasted garlic very successfully in the Instant Pot + Air Fryer (about 5 minutes in each). I’m gonna go ahead and bet this will work with that, too. I’ll report back once I get around to trying it!
Jennifer
November 4, 2017 at 6:51 pmCan you tell me how to make a garlic cream? I haven’t found any oil-free garlic puree recipes & think this might do the trick if subbing garlic for the onions…just not sure of amount of garlic, cooking temps & times.
Jonathan Kirkendall
April 8, 2018 at 6:11 pmMade this yesterday to make the onion ranch dressing which was amazing – and then today we spooned it into your homestyle lentil soup that we made and gave it a stir. Added a deep, almost sweet onion flavor to the soup. So good!