Caramelized Onion Tarts with Blue Cheese
These SUPER easy caramelized onion tarts are loaded with sweet fig jam, tangy blue cheese and flaky puff pastry crust baked to perfection, then drizzled with honey!
You’ll Love These
- They’re unexpected yet classic. The flavor combo of caramelized onion and blue cheese is a classic one but combining them on top of a flaky puff pastry is likely something your friends haven’t tried before – and they are going to LOVE it!
- They’re a really fun recipe to make when you’ve got a free afternoon to mess around in the kitchen. I like to invite friends over, open a bottle of wine and spend the afternoon chatting in the kitchen – I find it’s more fun when you get friends involved.
- They’re the perfect handheld appetizer for your next party. They taste great fresh and warm from the oven, or they taste amazing at room temp too. Which makes them the perfect treat for your next get together!
Caramelized Onions
Grab a magazine (or who am I kidding, your phone) and a glass of wine and plop yourself on a stool in front of the stove. It’s going to take 60 minutes to caramelize these onions, but it’s SERIOUSLY worth every single second – trust me.
Halve 2.5 pounds of onions.
Thinly slice the onions about an 1/8″ thick.
Heat olive and butter over medium heat in a heavy bottom pan. Add sliced onions.
You’ll be cooking these onions for a total of 60 minutes and stirring them every 5 minutes. I like to use a wooden spoon or spatula for stirring these babies.
After about 10 minutes of cooking, add a large pinch of salt.
This is what your onions will look like after about 30 minutes.
After about 40 minutes of cooking, add a teaspoon of sugar.
After you’ve cooked the onions for a full 60 minutes, pour in wine to deglaze the bottom of the pot. Be sure to scrape all the yummy bits off the bottom of the pan!
That’s it! Caramelized onions are easy peasy!
When the caramelized onions are almost done, preheat your oven to 400 degrees and get to work assembling those tarts!
Assembling Tarts
Unroll both sheets of puff pastry. Cut along the seams of each sheet of puff pastry, creating 6 rectangles total out of the two sheets of puff pastry.
Cut each rectangle into 3 squares.
Use a sharp knife to score a crust about a half inch wide around the edge of each square.
Brush the crust portion of the tart with the egg wash.
Spread a teaspoon of fig jam (this is my fave brand) in the center of each tart. A cookie scoop is helpful here to make sure each tart gets the same amount of jam.
Top that with a teaspoon of caramelized onions.
Top that with a teaspoon of blue cheese.
Bake tarts for 18-20 minutes or until the crust starts to get dark golden brown. Add a few thyme leaves to each caramelized onion tart and drizzle them with honey. Serve warm or at room temp and enjoy!
Pastry Substitutes
You could use pie crust or even crescent rolls. However, puff pastry has the perfect buttery flakiness needed for this dish, so it’s best to stick to the recipe here and use traditional puff pastry sheets. Thaw them in the fridge overnight so they are easy to unroll and cut.
Find Puff Pastry
You’ll typically find puff pastry in the freezer section of your grocery store near the dessert items. Pepperidge Farm is my favorite reasonably priced brand that can be found at most grocery stores.
Cheese
You could use Gorgonzola or Roquefort instead as they both have a rich, tangy flavor similar to blue cheese. But luckily, blue cheese is very popular and super easy to find so you shouldn’t have to spend too much time hunting it down!
Jam
To achieve the same flavor profile, it is ideal to use fig jam. Any sweet fruit preserve will work, however the flavors of fig work very well with blue cheese and honey and lucky for you, most grocery stores carry fig jam or fig preserves!
Make Ahead
- You could make the caramelized onions up to a week in advance and store them in an airtight container in the fridge. Before assembling, let them sit on the counter for one hour to come to room temp.
- Assemble tarts on parchment lined baking sheet. Cover with saran wrap and refrigerate for up to 24 hours before baking.
- When you’re ready to bake, remove from fridge (remove saran wrap) and let tarts sit on the counter for about 5-10 minutes.
- Then bake according to recipe instructions, garnish with thyme and drizzle with honey.
Freezing
- Assemble the tarts, freeze them on a parchment lined baking sheet and then transfer them to an airtight container and freeze for up to two months.
- The day before baking, allow the tarts to thaw in the fridge overnight on a parchment lined baking sheet.
- When you’re ready to bake, remove tarts from fridge and let them sit out on the counter for 5-10 minutes.
- Then bake, add fresh thyme and drizzle with honey.
Tips
- If you’re obsessed with that tangy blue cheese flavor like I am, reserve a couple tablespoons to top the tarts after they’ve baked. This burst of fresh blue cheese is really going to amp up the flavor and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it.
- Puff pastry is the best dough for this recipe. Crescent rolls or even pie crust can be used as substitutes, but puff pastry is going to give you the best result for this recipe.
- When you’re caramelizing the onions, don’t worry if the bottom of the pan gets lots of dark brown bits stuck to the bottom. At the end of the 60 minutes, you’ll be deglazing the pan with white wine and scraping all those yummy bits off the bottom.
- Puff pastry is pretty forgiving, but it needs to be kept cold in order to rise properly when baked. So you definitely don’t want to let these babies sit out on your counter for too long or get anywhere near room temp before you bake them. Work quickly for best results!
More Easy Appetizers
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Caramelized Onion & Blue Cheese Puff Pastry Tarts
These tarts are as elegant as they are delicious. Caramelized onions combine with tangy blue cheese and sweet fig jam to deliver a palete pleasing flavor your friends and family will love!
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour + 20 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 40 minutes
- Yield: 18 tarts 1x
- Category: Appetizer
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- 1 (17.3 oz.) package puff pastry, thawed in the fridge overnight
- 2.5 pounds white or yellow onions, halved, then sliced 1/8″ thick
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon dry white wine
- Kosher salt
- 1 egg, beaten
- 9 oz. fig jam
- 5 oz. crumbled blue cheese
- 2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
- honey for drizzling
Instructions
- Heat butter and oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add onions and stir to coat in oil. You will cook the onions for 60 minutes total, stirring every 4-5 minutes or so.
- After they’ve cooked for 10 minutes add a pinch of salt.
- After they’ve cooked for 30 minutes, turn the heat to medium low. Don’t forget to keep stirring!
- After they’ve cooked for 40 minutes add a teaspoon of sugar. Be sure to keep stirring them every 4-5 minutes so they cook evenly.
- After they’ve finished cooking for 60 minutes and are a gorgeous dark brown color, pour in the wine and deglaze the pan (scrape all the bits off the bottom) and set aside.
- When the onions are nearing the end of the caramelizing process, preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Unroll both sheets of puff pastry and cut along the seams of each sheet, creating 6 rectangles total.
- Cut each rectangle into 3 squares. Use a knife to score a half inch crust around the outside of each tart.
- Transfer tarts to (2) parchment lined baking sheets. Arrange tarts on the two baking sheets about an inch apart.
- Brush the crust portion of the tart with the egg wash.
- Spread a teaspoon of fig jam in the center of each tart.
- Top that with a teaspoon of caramelized onions.
- Top that with a teaspoon of blue cheese.
- Bake tarts for 18-20 minutes or until the crust is dark golden brown.
- Remove tarts from the oven, sprinkle each with a few leaves of thyme and drizzle with honey.
- Serve warm or at room temp and enjoy!
Notes
If you’re obsessed with that tangy blue cheese flavor like I am, reserve a couple tablespoons to top the tarts after they’ve baked. This burst of fresh blue cheese is really going to amp up the flavor and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it.
Puff pastry is the best dough for this recipe. Crescent rolls or even pie crust can be used as substitutes, but puff pastry is going to give you the best result for this recipe.
When you’re caramelizing the onions, don’t worry if the bottom of the pan gets lots of dark brown bits stuck to the bottom. At the end of the 60 minutes, you’ll be deglazing the pan with white wine and scraping all those yummy bits off the bottom.
Puff pastry is pretty forgiving, but it needs to be kept cold in order to rise properly when baked. So you definitely don’t want to let these babies sit out on your counter for too long or get anywhere near room temp before you bake them. Work quickly for best results!
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1/32 of tart
- Calories: 138
- Sugar: 4.4 g
- Sodium: 95.9 mg
- Fat: 8.2 g
- Carbohydrates: 14 g
- Fiber: 0.6 g
- Protein: 2.6 g
- Cholesterol: 9.8 mg
This post was originally published in November 2018. It was updated in August of 2019 to include step-by-step instructions, process shots and tips for making the best puff pastry tarts every single time!
Delicious!! I am planning a 6-course Valentine’s Day dinner for my boyfriend (he LOVES blue cheese) and decided to make a test run of these to see how they turned out. The only thing I changed was using a cookie cutter to make them into the shapes of hearts. It was a little more complicated scoring them and spreading the filling and I had to adjust the baking time a little but they turned out absolutely delicious and will definitely be part of the menu 😋
That is a true labor of love! Your boyfriend is one lucky guy!!
I’m adding a bit of chopped proscuitto…yum
Great idea, Paula! Can’t wait to hear how it turns out!!
These look delicious…BUT they are very labor intensive because of carmelizing the onions. Once that is done, they are easy! However, my onions burned when I baked the tart.?…thus rendering them inedible. I am wondering if I cover the onions/cheese with al foil if that would stop the burning…?
I totally agree – the caramelized onions are a labor of LOVE! I would try spreading the blue cheese out a bit more OVER the onions so that they aren’t as exposed when you bake the tarts? Otherwise, foil would definitely be a good way to prevent them from burning, but may also prevent the tarts themselves from getting that nice golden brown color. Hope that helps, Ladybug!
I did take the (burnt onion) tarts to my dinner party…I have very forgiving friends! As they did notice the MINOR burnt taste..THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE DELICIOUS!??? The next time I will spread the cheese out a bit more…& cover JUST the onion/cheese mixture with al foil. Thanks for the interesting recipe! PS…one day later, my house still smells yummy from the caramelized onions!?
These were amazing! I switched out the blue cheese for goat cheese because of preference but loved them. Would demo them again and again.
I made these today for a dinner party as appetizer with rocket underneath. They look delicious, I hope everyone likes them…mine are much bigger! Thanks for the recipe.
Sounds great, Gail! Thanks so much for leaving a review – I really appreciate it 🙂
DELICIOUS!! Super easy to make, and like you can make ahead of time, just bake before you serve. You cannot go wrong with this recipe! I made just like the recipe, but next time will add a little more blue cheese, but that’s just because I LOVE blue cheese.
Toni – I agree, you can never have too much blue cheese! I’m glad you enjoyed this recipe 🙂 Thanks so much leaving a review; I really appreciate it!!
Perfect as is. Thank you for all the tips too.
Thank you so much Mary! This is one of our favorite holiday recipes. I’m so glad that you enjoyed it and thank you for leaving a review!!
Hi! Was thinking of doubling this recipe for a party. How much of the caramelized onions are made in this recipe? Is there any left over for another batch if I bought extra of the other ingredients to assemble? I’ve never made caramelized onions before so I wasn’t sure of the yield. Thanks! It looks delicious!
Yes I would definitely double the entire recipe. The onions cook down so much that there likely will not be any left for a second batch. I would double each of the ingredients in this one. Great question! I hope you enjoy Lindsay!! 🙂
Could you use Feta instead of Blue Cheese. Don’t like it.
Of course! Feta would be a great substitute. You could also try goat cheese! Great question Marden!
These look wonderful! I’m planning my daughter’s wedding reception menu and would like nicer pickup items. Could these be made smaller for mini tarts? We are expecting around 300 people and I’m trying to stretch to food as far as it will go.
Great question! I wouldn’t see any issues with making these tarts smaller. Just reduce the bake time and watch them carefully to make sure they don’t burn. I must say that it’s quite ambitious of you to make the food for your daughter’s wedding for 300 guests – I do not envy the task before you!! 😉
Can these be assembled and frozen then heated when ready to serve?
Yes! Check out the section of the post titled “Instructions for freezing these tarts”. That will give you all the details 🙂
An elegant and delicious party appetizer that everyone will love!
Looking forward to making these this weekend! Curious, what is the purpose of scoring the tart with the smaller cookie cutter. Is that just to know where the crust is to brush the egg wash? Just curious if I can skip the scoring part. Thank you – these look delicious.
Great question! Scoring the crust will allow the edges to rise around the filling when it is baked. I would highly recommend not skipping this step!
Where is the temperature
It’s under step number six. 400 degrees 🙂
These look delicious and I can’t wait to try them! Is it possible to make the onion jam ahead of time and heat back up from the fridge when I’m ready to assemble?
Yes! You could absolutely make the caramelized onions ahead of time! I would recommend leaving them out at room temperature for an hour before using, or heating them over low in a pan on the stove top. You could microwave them too but I’d be careful to do it in 20-25 second increments so it doesn’t affect their texture. Great question!