I Lovvvvve onions, cooked or raw.
I even live in Chicago, which translated from Ojibwe means “Smells Like Onions”.
My sweetie doesn’t like onion flavor <though he likes green onions well enough>, but I make a lot of soups, which kinda requires some onion; even in soups I don’t want much regular onion flavor, I still will pulverize just a quarter of an onion and mix it in. Adds that background flavor without really knowing it’s there. He doesn’t ever notice, to be sure.
I’ve found onion powder to give an ‘onion’ flavor that is much more palatable to my sweetie <and the kids> without using real onions. I think onion powder is like banana-flavored things, in that they have flavors of their own that have little to nothing to do with the real thing, yet serve as an acceptable and often desired substitute. Worth a shot for substitution, if one really must substitute.
Mmm, there we go. I adore shallots, probably because they’re closer to garlic and omg garlic!! Yum.
Shallots it is, then!
Or both.