Making Onion Oil for Burmese Salads

Onion Oil is the essential cooking oil Burmese use in their salad and dishes as a topping. Onion has that sweet flavor that enhances food flavors, presentation, and the aroma of serving food. Naturally, onions have sugar and esters, and they get caramelized when heated highly, which adds sweetness and complexity to the flavors of food.

Making cooked onion oil is the same as how we make garlic oil.

I can’t imagine all those Burmese rice salads, noodles salads, and veggies salad without the touch of sweet onion oil involving. Burmese use crispy onion/shallots alone as topping in some desserts as well. Onion oil is our national dressing for salads. I know no Burmese don’t love onion oil or crispy onion/shallots in our food.

According to my experience, smaller red shallots make a sweeter flavor than big white onion. But it is still caramelized and gets sweeter when it gets cooked at a high temperature.