Caramelized onion and goat cheese bites with puff pastry

Name: Caramelized onion and goat cheese bites
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 20 min
Ingredients: 1 sheet puff pastry (defrosted); 3 red onions (sliced); 1 tbsp brown sugar (or balsamic vinegar); 100 gr soft goat cheese; 1 twig Fresh thyme (leaves only); 25 gr Arugula (optional); 1 egg (whisked)

posted by Simone van den Berg on Dec 27, 2023 14 comments »

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5 from 2 votes

These delicious and super easy to make caramelized onion and goat cheese bites are made with puff pastry and these perfect appetizer bites are definitely going to make you and your guests happy!

Caramelized onion and goat cheese tart

I love making these cute little bites and I’ve yet to talk to someone who doesn’t like them! For making them you really don’t need a lot of ingredients. You need a creamy goat cheese (best at room temperature), some sweet caramelized onions and of course some puff pastry to make these bites. For looks I added some arugula and a little bit of fresh thyme. But both of those are optional.

For making these small bites you start by taking a baking sheet and add parchment paper to the baking tray. I use a small ring to cut out small rounds of my puff pastry sheet. You need two rings. The larger one is 7 cm or roughly 2,7 inches. The other one is slightly smaller. You use the larger one to cut out rounds. The second one you use to make a small indent in the first round. That will create a ring of sorts and you keep your filling in the inner circle.

Brush a little bit of egg wash on the outside of the ring so it will brown nicely.

Preparing the onions

Now comes the time to prepare the sweet onions. I love using red onions for this but you can also replace the onion with fig jam or even with some cranberry sauce if you want. You can also use a delicious chutney such as this red onion chutney or the apple pear chutney. That makes it even faster as you can buy it in the grocery store. But let’s assume you start from scratch and want to make your own caramelized onion.

You start by taking a skillet and heating it with some olive oil and butter. I like to use a combination of both but only oil is fine too. Slice the onions in rings and add to the pan. Leave it to caramelize slowly. It does require some time so let it slowly simmer away for about 10 to 15 minutes. You can add a little bit of brown sugar to get it going but I also like adding some balsamic vinegar instead.

Once they are sticky and sweet they are ready.

Now you’re ready to assemble your little tarts. You take the puff pastry dough (already cut into circles) and you add a teaspoon of the red onions in the middle. Now some goat cheese crumbles go on top and you finish with a little bit of thyme.

Bake in the oven until golden brown and cooked.

Variations and additions

If you’re not a fan of goat cheese you can make these puff pastry tarts with a bit of cream cheese instead. That would work very well too and these bites with flaky puff pastry, sweet onions and tangy goat cheese will be a crowd pleaser. Now I am a big goat cheese fan so I would definitely use goat cheese but you can use other cheeses, like blue cheese or cream cheese.

You can make it even easier by using baguette slices instead of the puff pastry. Make them into goat cheese crostini instead.

They would also be a good addition to a cheese board for instance and will do well at any holiday party and for the holiday season.

I hope you enjoy these little bites!