Slow Cooker Onion Jam
I was the kid with brown bread. Between the slices lay rare roast beef and Dijon mustard. While the other kids had bologna and Wonder Bread and Twinkies and cookies, my food was decidedly homemade. Even my peanut butter sandwiches had jam instead of the more socially acceptable jelly.
My lunch wasn’t the only thing that made me different. I dropped out of the Brownies after my first meeting (they slept outside… IN. TENTS.), I refused to play sports, or go to camp. I was prone to precociousness and wore a full-length fur coat over my school uniform. I was, in a word, weird.
Then there was the matter of my name, not Stacy or Michelle or Wendy or Heather, but Sabrina. Never a California license plate keychain or a lunchbox with my name on it. Basically, I was doomed.
When you’re in a conventional little town in a conventional Catholic school, having rather unconventional parents who aren’t even Catholic, you can’t count on high social status. When you are 9 years old, there is no place for the weird kid, the chunky jam, or the brown bread.
But then, if you’re lucky, you learn how to love your weirdness, celebrate it, and when you grow up, you can eat any kind of jam you like.
My first stab at homemade jam was tomato. Yep, tomato jam (told you I’m weird). Next I moved on to things like blueberry jam with ginger and spiced plum jam. To this day, I still haven’t made plain strawberry jam- a fact I mean to rectify this June.
A few years back, I bought a jar of garlic and onion jam. Now, I have a little quirk, I don’t love roasted garlic. I find it too weirdly sweet and it doesn’t sit well with my palate. I liked the idea of the sweet/savory jam, but I wasn’t on board with the execution. Many homemade onion jams followed, some with balsamic, some with wine, some with bacon! It wasn’t until I made this onion jam that I knew I had to share a recipe with you.
Firstly, I used my slow cooker instead of my usual stovetop method. The Crock Pot makes it simple and care free. Secondly, I upped my game with bourbon, smoked sea salt, and maple syrup. This flavor combination totally knocked my socks off. We’ve had it on grilled cheese, in gravy for poutine, and also on little toast rounds with Parmesan, basil, and pomegranate seeds. I may have also eaten more than my share right off a spoon. Don’t judge.
So, my friends, here’s to you for being different, for being weird, for loving brown bread, Dijon mustard, homemade mayonnaise, and onion jam.
If you need it, here’s a tutorial on the quickest easiest way to chop onions.
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INGREDIENTS
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 lbs onions, ½ inch dice
- 6 oz bourbon
- 4 oz maple syrup
- ¼ cup coconut sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon smoked sea salt (more to taste)
- 2 teaspoons cracked black pepper
- Pour oil into the slow cooker and tilt crock back and forth until oil coats the bottom. Add onions, bourbon, maple syrup, coconut sugar, salt and pepper. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.
- Remove the lid from your slow cooker and cook uncovered on high. Check back every hour, scraping any onions off the side. Cook until liquid is gone and the onion jam is thick and dark. This took 3 hours for me, but will vary depending on your slow cooker and how juicy your onions were.
- Taste one last time and add more smoked sea salt if needed.
Mmmmm…looks delish. I, too, was the one with the charcuterie or homemade cookies in my orange tupperware lunchbox. No Dukes or Wonder woman for me. I wanted the oreos but my mother had the nerve to bake in the mornings. I just wanted to say that I love your blog and photos. Cheers to embracing your uniqueness!
Cheers to you, as well. Thank you so much for your kind words. Seeing your comment in my queue was a great way to start my day.
Hope your day is grand. 🙂
Love it! I always wanted to be different but I was sadly just like everyone else I went to school with. At one point, I had 3 other Amandas in my class. It was awful. And yeah, I totally dropped out of Brownies after the first meeting because they made us decorate plastic cups with markers and all I wanted to do was sell cookies and go camping.
This looks so good! I'm obsessed with onion jam but I've never made it myself. Gotta try it!
We take a tour of the Columbia Gorge Fruit Loop every summer and sample all kinds of preserves along the way. I usually come home with something new that I want to try. Last year it was onion jam, but I never got around to figuring out how to make it. And now here you are! This looks great, and the fact that I can make it the slow cooker is a huge bonus!
P.S. I was pretty different myself as a kid, but since I wanted to be a writer and artist from the time I could hold a pencil, people just thought it was part of the package.
Onion jam? With Bourbon? Yes, please!!! Love your trip down memory lane – looks a lot like mine – except that I had blonde hair, green eyes and a boring name like Pam 🙂
This is on my list of things to make! I love onion jam with cheese and it's also wonderful on a burger. I never thought of making it a slow cooker, what a great idea!
LOVE onion jam although I've never tried it in a slow cooker. I'll have to try. I didn't last long in girl scouts either and now my daughter is doing it and I'm scared they'll make the parents go camping! haha! Not for me either. 🙂
Sounds totally yummy! Is there something I can substitute for the bourbon though, that’s non-alcoholic?
I’m wondering if you can recommend an alternative to the maple syrup – something with less sugar?
Thanks! 🙂