Worcestershire Onion Sauce

Easy Onion Meal Upgrade

• What: Easy onion sauce
• When: Two years and up
• Why: Tasty, easy, affordable
• Where: Your home

While my kids won’t touch an onion in any form with a ten foot pole, I still love this simple sauce. If you have also grown tired of trying to make dinners your kids will eat that also still appeal to your broader palate, give this recipe a try.

I found this simple recipe in an Everyday with Rachel Ray magazine I read secondhand from a friend. Not being a Rachel Ray type, I’m still using it ten years later. The recipe consists of three simple ingredients: onions, Worcestershire sauce, and brown sugar. It turns out you can’t go wrong combining those three things in almost any proportions.

The original recipe calls for two small onions cut into quarter inch slices. You drop those into a pot on the stove in some olive oil if you’d like. Let them cook for ten to twelve minutes or until they get soft. Toss in two tablespoons of brown sugar and two tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce. (While the original recipe called for adobe sauce, I didn’t have that on hand, and substituted Worcestershire sauce. A great decisions if I do say so myself.) Let the whole thing steep for another couple minutes and you’re all set. The recipe was meant for a tasty way to dress up hot dogs (try this onion sauce with sharp cheddar cheese slices on even a bland hot dog to make it appealing), but I use it for other things, too.

All the ingredients costs very little and come in bulk, so you can make several rounds of this topping without retreating to the store for additional supplies. I keep all three things on hand now specifically for this recipe.

My favorite, besides hot dogs, is butternut squash pasta. You can’t go wrong with pasta with a built in vegetable camouflaged the same color as the pasta. But while your kids can enjoy stuffed ravioli without any flavor adornment, adults can spice it up a bit with the onion sauce and some lightly toasted nuts. I use pecans, because we have them in abundance, but walnuts or other nuts will work fine, too. 

No matter how you choose to use this tasty addition to meals, it will make your next dinner seem like a gourmet menu for a small fraction of the work, while leaving the plain stuff for the younger generation.