All of my latest posts are desserts or sugar-related, I know. Don’t hate me. But candied walnuts are a little more versatile. Salads, toppings, granola, snacking, as well as desserts.

As a young college student, I had a part-time job at the movie theater. Shoutout to Harkins – they have the best movie popcorn. They offered candied pecans, walnuts, and almonds for sale along with the usual popcorn, soda, and candy.

While on the job, they would rotate team members through different positions as you learned. You would start off cleaning theaters and bathrooms. Then after getting a food handler license you could move into working concessions. And after a while, they would have you work the box office selling tickets.

But while at concessions you would take orders, make popcorn, build boxes, prep nachos, and switch out soda syrup boxes in the back. And once or twice every shift they would make batches of candied nuts. I never had the honor of making them myself, and I hated when they would start the machine up for a new batch.

Because it smelled so good. And I knew I wouldn’t be eating any. It was pure torture.

The Process for Candied Walnuts

But if you are making these walnuts for yourself, you won’t have that same problem.

I had trouble making candied walnuts for the longest time. The issue, in my eyes, was that I followed recipes that instructed me to put the nuts in with the sugar before it had melted. This ended up cooking the walnuts for far too long and they would always taste burnt.

The trick is to take the sugar to caramelization and then stir in the walnuts.

For this method, I add the sugar straight to the pan on medium heat and let it slowly melt. While it is melting, the sugar will also begin to caramelize. Once all the sugar is melted and reached the perfectly brown caramel color you want, add the walnuts and water and stir to coat. Let it cook a few more minutes to release some of the moisture.

Then remove the pan from the heat and spread the walnuts out on a covered baking sheet. You can use foil, parchment paper, or a silicone baking mat to line your baking sheet. Now put it into the oven at 350°F to dry and harden even more.

Once they have been in the oven for 5 to 10 minutes, take them out and let them cool. After cooling, they will be sweet crunchy nuggets of caramelized flavor. You will need to break the walnuts apart since the sugar has hardened.

Store them in an airtight container or bag for up to 2 weeks, depending mostly on the moisture level in the air.

Flavor Options

For the base recipe below, I have not included anything in the ingredients that would add extra flavor to the candied nuts. But that doesn’t mean that other flavors are out of the question.

If you want to add some different flavor to the walnuts, mix it into the 1/2 cup of water before adding it into the pan. For most spices, between 1 teaspoon and 1 tablespoon should be enough – depending on how potent the flavor you want to add is.

Optional ingredients to flavor – vanilla, cinnamon, cayenne, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, brown sugar instead of white sugar, really whatever you think would taste great with the walnut flavor.

The warm spices that make up pumpkin pie spice would all really work well with the walnuts.

How to Make Candied Walnuts

Course: SnacksDifficulty: Moderate

Servings

6

servings

Prep time

15

minutes

Cooking time

20

minutes

Total time

35

minutes

Perfect for topping salads, ice cream, and cakes, or for straight snacking.

Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar

• 3 cups walnuts

• 1/2 cup water

Directions

• Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C)
• Add the sugar to a thick-bottomed pan over medium heat
• Let the sugar melt, stirring occasionally, and it will begin to caramelize
• Once all of the sugar has melted and it has caramelized to a nice rich brown color, stir in the walnuts
• Add the water to the pan and stir to combine and coat, let it cook while stirring for 3 to 5 minutes
• Remove the pan from the heat and spread the walnuts on a parchment, silicone mat, or foil-lined baking sheet
• Bake them in the oven 5 to 10 minutes to lose moisture
• Remove them from the oven and let cool for at least 10 minutes, then break apart the walnuts and enjoy

The post How to Make Candied Walnuts appeared first on Do You Roux?.

I’m dreaming of a white pizza, cause it already seems like it will probably be a white Christmas here. And pizza tastes better than snow. Unless maybe you’re at Bahama Bucks for some shaved ice.

Anyways, while working on the post for how to caramelize onions, I remembered this pizza. I was coming up with recipes that would use the caramelized onions and had the eureka moment. And it had been a very long time since I had made the pizza. Which is unacceptable with how delicious it is. So now I bring you this delicious combination of dough, sauce, and toppings.

The first incarnation of this recipe comes from my mom many years ago. While on a trip to Utah to see family she had a white pizza at The Pizza Factory. She loved it. But once she was back home, she wanted to recreate it. So she got to work and made her own version from how it was in her head.

And then it got interpreted again. Because this here is not exactly her recipe. It is my take on what she did. I loved the white pizza and hadn’t really had a non-red sauce pizza before she made it at home. It was a whole new world that I decided to dive into.

White Pizza Toppings

You can really customize this however you’d like. A lot of things taste great on a white pizza. This can make it really great for having people over because you can have everything ready to go and just let people choose their own toppings. But this combination below goes extremely well together.

• Cheese – The cheese obviously makes the pizza. This one uses a combination of fresh mozzarella, a block of mozzarella, and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Using too much of the thick slices of fresh mozzarella seems to overload the pizza. But I like cheese everywhere so I shred a block of mozzarella to sprinkle over top and in between. Then the shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano is a finishing touch on top.
• White Garlic sauce – For this, you essentially make a garlic béchamel sauce using a roux with some garlic and parmesan added for flavor.
• Chicken – Cooked and chopped beforehand, I prefer to use some marinated and grilled chicken but had to improvise for this one since I didn’t want to go out and grill in below freezing temps. So I used a grill pan on the stovetop. You can use whatever chicken you’d like – rotisserie chicken or leftover chicken from another recipe could work here.
• Bacon – Salty. Fatty. Cooked crisp and crunchy. I crumble the slices of bacon once they are cooked to sprinkle over the pizza.
• Caramelized onion – The inspiration for posting this recipe came when I was making caramelized onions. These lend a complex mix of savory and pop of sweetness to the recipe that helps balance some of the other toppings.
• Spinach – Wilted in a bit of olive oil, this lends some greens to the pizza and another texture to the mix.
• Pine nuts – These take on a toasted quality that brings out their crunch and buttery flavor when cooked on the pizza

Assembly and Baking

To put the pizza together, I find it helpful to set all the toppings out in bowls around where I will roll out the pizza dough. You can kind of see this in the photo above. Then after rolling and pre-baking, it is easy to grab a little of each and sprinkle it around to top it just how you like.

Below is a little before and after photo comparison slider for what the pizza looks like before and after baking.

To bake, you want your oven as hot as it will go. With my last oven, it was only 500°F, and I don’t think that it actually got that hot inside. While testing this recipe in the new house, I realized this oven went to 550°F (290°C) and it seems to actually reach those temperatures. The new one is also gas which likely affected how it cooked for me. But the dough came out perfectly crispy with a nice crunch as I rolled my pizza wheel through to cut slices.

For this recipe, I tried flipping the pizza crust after the initial 2 to 3-minute pre-bake and then putting the toppings on the side that was originally the bottom. This really helped the crust fully cook and crisp, even with the fresh mozzarella that tends to put out a lot of moisture while cooking.

Things will tend to get messy and you may feel like a flour monster attacked you and your kitchen, but it is fairly easy to clean up. Maybe you are neater than my sous chef and I are when in the kitchen. A damp rag or paper towel is usually enough to wipe things down. And, of course, it is much easier to clean up after having eaten some delicious homemade pizza.

Chicken Bacon White Pizza

Recipe by Marc PetersonCourse: EntreesDifficulty: Intermediate

Servings

8

servings

Prep time

25

minutes

Cooking time

35

minutes

Total time

1

hour 

Chicken, bacon, caramelized onions, and a deeply garlic sauce make this pizza stand out from the norm.

Ingredients

• Pizza dough for three 12-inch pizzas (this Serious Eats recipe is my go-to and gets the perfect amount, but it takes 24 hours to rest in the fridge, so prepare ahead)

• Garlic Béchamel Pizza Sauce

• 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

• 2 tablespoons butter

• 1 tablespoon olive oil

• 3 tablespoons flour

• 1 cup milk

• 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

• 2 tablespoons Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, grated

• Pizza Toppings

• 24 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced about 1/4″ thick

• 2 cups mozzarella cheese, shredded 

• 2 chicken breasts, cooked and chopped (or about two cups chopped rotisseries chicken)

• 4 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled

• 1/2 cup caramelized onions

• 2 handfuls of spinach, sautéed in 1 tablespoon olive oil for 5 minutes

• 1 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, shredded

• 1/4 cup pine nuts

• 6 large basil leaves, cut in a chiffonade or long, thin strips

Directions

• Garlic Béchamel Pizza Sauce
• Add garlic, butter, and olive oil to a sauce pan over medium heat
• Stir to melt the butter and sauté the garlic for 2 to 4 minutes until garlic is fragrant
• Mix in the flour to combine and stir while cooking for 3 minutes
• Whisk in milk, heavy whipping cream, and 2 tablespoons Parmigiano-Reggiano until fully combined
• Heat the sauce until thickened, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes
• Remove from heat
• Pizza Assembly
• Preheat the oven to 550°F (290°C)
• Prepare all pizza toppings and have them easily accessible for putting on the pizzas
• Take a portion of dough for one pizza and roll it out on a floured surface to 12 inches in diameter
• Place the dough on a pan or pizza stone in the oven and cook 2 to 3 minutes until no longer doughy
• Remove from oven and flip the pizza crust over
• Top with fresh mozzarella, shredded mozzarella, chicken, bacon, caramelized onions, spinach, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and pine nuts – but do not overload the crust
• Put the topped pizza back in the oven for 5 to 7 minutes until cheese is melted and edges are golden brown
• Remove from the oven, sprinkle with sliced basil, and let cool
• Repeat steps 3-8 for remaining dough and toppings
• Slice and enjoy

Notes

• To reheat any leftovers (if that ever were to happen), just preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C) and put the slices in for 5 to 7 minutes until the bottom is hot and you hear everything sizzling

The post White Pizza with Chicken and Bacon appeared first on Do You Roux?.

The first thing you need to know is it takes some time to truly caramelize onions. There are a few methods to more quickly make some faux-caramelized onions, but those tend to rely on adding sugars that caramelize around the onions rather than the sugars in the onions themselves. It is definitely worth the wait.

Caramelized onions have a rich sweetness that adds much more complexity to the final dish in which they’re used. They also smell delicious while cooking, so that’s an added bonus. You can use any kind of onion to caramelize, though it is a little more difficult to tell when red onions are finished because of their inherent color.

You can substitute caramelized onions in many dishes that call for onions. They’re also amazing as toppings for a whole ton of recipes – pizza, burgers, steak, sandwiches, patty melts. There is a delicious homemade white pizza that I love to make where I caramelize onions to go with chicken, cream sauce, and cheese. I will have to add that recipe to my plans…

Steps for Caramelizing

It is easy to caramelize, you just need to take it low and slow. Because there are natural sugars in the onion, if you cook them on too high a heat they will burn before caramelizing. I had my stove squarely in between the low and medium settings. Basically, fat plus onions plus medium-low heat plus time is the recipe to caramelize onions.

1. Cut and prepare the onions
2. Add fats on medium-low heat in a large frying pan
3. Add onions to the pan
4. Cook and stir every few minutes until caramelized

A compiled image below shows the onions in the pan while cooking about every ten minutes, so you know generally what to expect.

General Onion Tips

Picking onions at the store or market – Pick the onion up and make sure it doesn’t have any soft spots. While you’re holding it you can take a whiff – if you get a strong onion smell, then put it back because it is already on its way out. Sprouting onions and ones with bad blemishes on the outside should be avoided.

Storing onions – Keep onions in a cool, dry, well-ventilated space, out of direct sunlight. Uncut onions do not need to be refrigerated. They can last 1 to 2 months when stored properly. If you notice any of the issues from the picking onions section in your stored onions then either use it immediately or put it in the compost depending on how far gone it is.

Remove the onion smell from your hands – Washing your hands with salt, or washing them while rubbing a stainless steel spoon, fork, or knife will help remove the smell. The metal attracts the sulfur compounds that make your hands smell. There are also special metal ‘soap’ bars that you can get to help rinse the smell away. After washing with salt or stainless steel, use some soap to wash and you’ll be good to go.

Curb the watering eyes – I’m not crying, I’ve just been cutting onions. Compounds released when cutting can irritate the eyes. Two methods work really well – #1 – cutting the onions under your stove vent with the fan running #2 – freeze the onions for 10 to 15 minutes before removing them from the freezer and cutting. So try one or both methods next time. Also, try wearing contacts. Haha. I wear contacts and they seem to make a barrier to the irritating chemicals. I can definitely notice a difference when I don’t have them in.

Recipes To Caramelize Onions

• White Pizza
• French Onion Soup
• Grilled Steak
• Homemade Hamburgers
• Patty Melt
• Onion Dip

In the photo of the appetizer above, I just grabbed some crackers and then topped them with goat cheese, caramelized onions, and parsley. An easy, simple snack or appetizer that looks high-end. All because I took the time to caramelize the onions.

How to Caramelize Onions

Recipe by Marc PetersonCourse: SidesDifficulty: Easy

Servings

8

servings

Prep time

5

minutes

Cooking time

50

minutes

Total time

55

minutes

Caramelize onions to deepen their flavor and bring out their natural sugars for a savory-sweet addition to tons of recipes.

Ingredients

• 4 large onions

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter

• 1 tablespoon olive oil

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

• Slice the ends off the onions
• Place the onion on one of the cut ends, cut it in half, and then remove the peel
• Place the halves on the newly flat side and then slice into long strands between 1/8th and 1/4 inch thick
• Melt the butter in a large frying pan on medium-low heat
• Add the olive oil and the onions to the pan, stirring to coat the onion slices
• Cook the onions while stirring every 3 to 5 minutes until fragrant, brown, and caramelized – 50 to 60 minutes

Notes

• Sticky stuff stuck to the pan after cooking? You can deglaze the pan with 1/4 cup broth or water to pick that deliciousness up and mix it back into the onions

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