This Paula Deen Tip Will Make Your Sautéed Vegetables More Flavorful Than Ever
Paula Deen is still around and still dishing up food and advice (spoiler alert: both involve a lot of butter.) While the southern chef has certainly experienced her share of criticism in recent years, due to allegations of cultural appropriation, bad business dealings, and racism, she "did not go gently into that good night" (via Eater). Rather, Deen made a recent appearance on "MasterChef Legends," and regularly updates her Instagram page with IGTV episodes, featuring cooking tutorials for things like flourless corn fritters, and chocolate chip pound cake. And one of her posts, a 15-minute video on making Paula Deen's Family Kitchen Cheesy Squash Casserole, has a hot tip for all you vegetable sautéers out there.
"I cook my onions in a separate pan with butter," Deen reveals in the video. She shows the camera a pan full of thinly sliced yellow squash, already sautéing away with a butter pad of its own, and then explains that rather than tossing the onions right in there with them, she likes to give them their own butter bath. "For some reason, that just — by me sautéing those onions by themselves — is just full of flavor, and to me, it just makes it better." The added butter required in order to cook those onions separately no doubt helps in the flavor department for, as we all know, butter makes everything taste better.
Butter makes everything better, though not necessarily healthier
"This looks delicious," one commenter on Deen's Instagram post raved, "looks like a must try." Another user suggested adding a bit of bell pepper in with the onions (unclear whether that would require a separate pan and more butter as well), while a third inquired about substituting the recipe's sour cream with Greek yogurt, instead.
You can understand why fans might be looking for a way to make the dish healthier. While Deen's method is undoubtedly flavorful, it doesn't look like the most cholesterol-friendly dish. In the video, when Deen gets the butter for her onions, she doesn't mention any measurements, just instructs the viewer to grab "a little bit." "That's a 'little bit?'" asks a voice off-screen, as Deen grabs a hunk of the stuff. "Usually, when I make my squash casserole, I wind up with, like, one stick of butter in the whole entire casserole," Deen explains, as she proceeds to cook the squash, the onions, and the cracker crumbs that will go atop the finished casserole...all in butter. "That way," Deen says cheekily, "I know everybody gets a little drink of butter." The full recipe for the cheesy squash casserole is on Deen's website; however the note to separate out vegetables and cook them in extra butter is noticeably gone — and the recipe itself calls for only a tablespoon.