Just too late for your 4th of July BBQ, but perhaps just in time for the rest of your life of eating deliciousness, I have something for you that made me practically sob in making it but really happy in eating it: tarte a l’oignon, or onion tart. If you host a BBQ or dinner in the near future and want something with lots of flavor that’s easy to make, I highly suggest this onion tart.

We hosted a BBQ recently and had several people over who don’t eat meat so we wanted to have a number of sides that were vegetarian. While Haitian cooking isn’t known for being vegetarian, my grandmother has several recipes that could serve this purpose. I thought the onion tart would be a good dish because of the reasons stated above and because – bonus! – it can be mostly pre-made and you don’t have to worry so much about it the day of your hosting duties. So here we go.

Ingredients:

*This made enough filling for two, 9-inch pie pans, but you can keep it to one pie dish if you want a really thick tart.*

• 6 yellow onions
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• grated Parmesan
• 4 tbsp butter
• 4 tbsp flour
• 1/3 cup evaporated milk
• 2 slices ham (I opted out of this as I wanted to make a vegetarian meal.)
• pie crust (I bought refrigerated Pillsbury dough that I could easily roll out into a 9-inch pie pan.)

Directions:

Pillsbury pie crust

Cooking the onions

1. Make your pie crust. I ended up making two pie crusts since the filling was enough for two.
2. While the pie crust is cooling, set oven to 350 degrees.
3. Cut up into small pieces the onions – cutting up six onions had me CRYING SO HARD, I’M NOT EXAGGERATING! – and the ham if you choose to include it.
4. Get a pan or pot large enough to hold six chopped onions and melt butter in said pot/pan.
5. Cook the onions on low-to-medium heat. Stir every few minutes.
6. Add the ham if you’re including that. Stir every few minutes.
7. Slowly add the salt, pepper, sugar and flour. Keep stirring so it blends and doesn’t clump.
8. Then add the milk slowly and stir.

Okay, this is where I differed from the recipe. The recipe says to add the cheese last, as in add the cheese last of all the ingredients in the pot/pan and then pour the entire mixture into the pie crust. I decided to switch that up, so here are the rest of my directions:

1. Pour mixture into pie crust(s).
2. Cover with cheese until your heart is content.
3. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. (I pre-made this the day before a BBQ, so I cooked for 20 minutes the day I made it and then for 10 minutes shortly before serving the next day.)
4. Let cool for 20 minutes before serving.

Onion mixture poured into crust…

…and then covered in grated Parmesan.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get great images as I was making and baking a lot the day before the BBQ and being a host the day-of, but trust me, it was delicious. One and a half onion tarts were eaten at the BBQ and we got compliments throughout the BBQ and even the next day. It’s a hit, people!