I have made these every Thanksgiving for more years than I choose to remember. To peel the little onions a little easier you pour boiling water over them and let them stand and then peel. However, around here the onions are getting harder to find and quite expensive. I seem to recall paying almost $5 for less than a pound at WF last year. The easy way is frozen onions,although the grocery store brand is adequate I recently bought some at Trader Joe's that I thought were more tender and uniform in size. As to a recipe you just stir them into a thin cream sauce. Adding a little cloves or nutmeg is a nice touch. You can make them ahead. This is a tradition with turkey in my husband's family but I really think they taste better with roast beef.

OMG, I love rice and creamed onions. My MIL introduced me to them 33 years ago and we still love them. I just slice onions and simmer in water until tender. I then make my white sauce using some of the water from the cooked onions to add flavor. I really think it is one of my family's favorite side dishes. Yummmmmm!

These have been a must for many decades at our Thanksgiving dinner. I am happy with the Birdseye frozen creamed pearl onions.

Isn't it typical on this forum that one can ask a question and then receive three separate answers that are all great?! I shall happily try all three, and thank you for your help. Happy Thanksgiving ... a little early.

I'll be taking creamed onions to T-Day dinner with brother and his extended family. I'll be using frozen pearl onions (maybe Bird's Eye?). Think I'll experiment and see if bleu cheese is a good addition to recipe.

We always had creamed pearl onions at Holidays too. Them and the creamed carrots were done the same way. Cook the onions [carrots]in water with a little salt, remembering that you're keeping the water. Cook until done, letting the water level cook down a bit at the end so that the onion stick out a bit. Then add a bit of butter. Add milk [or cream if you want]to cover the onions. Taste for salt and adjust. We don't use pepper but add that if you like. Bring up to simmer and thicken with a cornstarch slurry. I've always used the cooking water as the base of the sauce. It has too much flavor to discard. Same thing for the carrots.

I have noticed that the fresh ones are either hard to find and when you do find them they're either big or really varied in size in the same carton. Frozen seems a good solution.

I always have Birds Eye creamed onions for Thanksgiving..Just would not be the same without them. My mother always had them when we were growing up and I continue the tradition. Not everybody agrees they are a necessary part of the festivities. I really like them a lot.

Nostalgia......
Growing up...creamed onions were always necessary for Christmas and Thanksgiving. That and some gloppy boiled butternut squash watery puree, blech!
But I loved the onions...
I married and melded my traditions with my husband's family's traditions. Scalloped oysters made the cut, lima beans and corn made the cut (??!!) but the onions didn't.
Think I will re-introduce them...
Does anyone else sprinkle a little parm cheese over the dish?

lindac - I have a question for you. What culinary traditions from your husband's family over rode the creamed onions?

Scalloped corn.....I had never heard of such a thing until I came to the midwest. And they had never heard of scalloped oysters nor home made whole berry cranberry sauce.
The first Thanksgiving meal with my husband's family, his aunt cooked, she served "wild rice and mushrooms"....thought I had died and gone to heaven!! I...all of 20 at the time, not yet a part of the family, asked what's in it? And she said..'
"Just wild rice mushrooms and chicken broth"...I didn't ask where do you get the wild rice??? But another aunt lived in Minnesota and was a social worker on the reservation and there always lots of wild rice at that time...I learned later.

Interesting that they had never heard of whole berry cranberry sauce when a large percentage of fresh cranberries come from Wisconsin. Oh so close to Iowa. I guess I am assuming your husband's family was from Iowa - but only because you live there now.

We always had creamed onions at our family's Thanksgiving dinners. Then on one fateful day, one of the kids who was studying graphing in math class asked everyone what were their most favorite and least favorite foods of the meals.

A pie chart of the least favorite foods told the tale. Creamed onions were the least favorite food by a majority of the votes. My aunt and uncle who always hosted the meal both said that they were on the menu because someone really liked them but they couldn't recall who it was.

We finally remembered that it was my great-uncle Albert, who had been dead for about 20 years. So creamed onions haven't been a part of of our Thanksgiving celebrations since then.