While on my journey to explore the wonders of caramelized onions, a reader commented to me on Facebook that she doesn’t go to all the trouble of sipping wine while slowly melting down onions on her stovetop (really?  I thought the wine was worth the trouble.).  In any event, she told me that she does them overnight in her slow cooker.  I experimented with her suggestions, and I found out she was absolutely right.

I filled my slow cooker 3/4 full with onions sliced into 1/8 inch rings, then poured 4 tablespoons melted butter on top and stirred to coat.  I covered the cooker and left it on low for 10 hours.  They were gorgeous, but to finish them off and make them extra “jammy,” I left the lid ajar and cooked it two hours longer, allowing the excess water to evaporate off.  Here’s what I ended up with:

Inspired to keep going with my slow cooker without having to generated extra dishes, I then used my glorious onions to make the following recipe:

Pork Shoulder Roast with Caramelized Onions and Apples

This recipe is so elegantly simple, it’s pure wizardry. The juices and natural sugars in the onions slowly braise the pork shoulder to create a rich, sweet roast with hardly any ingredients.

Serves 4–6

3 tablespoons unsalted butter or lard

2 pounds onions, peeled and sliced thin

1 3-pound boneless, or 5-pound bone-in pork shoulder roast

1 tablespoon coarse salt

2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

5 baking apples, quartered and cored but not peeled

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté slowly, about 30 minutes, until they are rich brown and well caramelized (not burned). Turn off the heat and allow them to cool until you can handle them easily.  *If you used the above slow cooker technique, you can skip this step.

Rub the meat with salt and pepper.  Then. using your hands, slather the onions onto the surface of the roast, completely coating it. Set it in the slow cooker.  Scatter the apples skin-side up on the bottom of the pan all around the pork shoulder. Cook on low, 7-9 hours, until the meat is fork-tender.