Julia Child I am not, but this classic French onion soup is still worth making! It takes time, so don’t plan to throw it together in ten minutes. This is a recipe to plan ahead. Get a bottle of wine. Enjoy savoring the time it takes and the delightful aroma of your kitchen when you’re done.
I’m not usually the person making the dinner, I stick to the snack portion of the menu. However, there are days you just want a hearty soup to warm you up. It’s always such a tough choice for me in a restaurant to choose between onion soup and clam chowdah. The onion soup pulls me in because of the bread and cheese. The clam chowdah is all about the creaminess and potato bits. At some point clam chowdah will make an appearance in the recipe list. But, today it’s all about onions.
Do you remember your first taste of real onion soup (not the stuff out of a box)? I do. It was at the Sirloin Saloon in South Burlington, VT. Alas, no longer. Oh, the melty cheese. The hunk of bread soaked in broth. Seriously, I could have skipped the onions, but that was then. Now, I practically scrap the bowl clean.
For this classic French onion soup, gather your ingredients, turn off the alerts on your phone, pop open that bottle of wine (it’s for you, not the soup!) and tell everyone else to buzz off for awhile as you are ‘communing with the great Julia.’
You’re going to start off with what seems to be a ridiculously too small stock pot, but you will be amazed at how little room those onions take up after caramelizing them. Wine at the ready? No one under foot? Let’s tackle the great French onion soup adventure!
| Prep Time | 10 minutes |
| Cook Time | 1-2 hours |
| Servings |
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- 3 pounds yellow onions
- 3 tbsp butter unsalted
- 1 pinch sea salt you won't need this if your broth is salted
- 8 cups broth use what you want (veggie, beef, mushroom)
- 1 tsp fresh ground pepper or more, if you want
- 1 clove garlic
- crusty bread one round per ramekin, sliced thick
- 1/4 cup melty cheese gruyere or similar (you want a really nice melt on top of the soup)
Ingredients
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- Thinly slice the onions. (This will help them caramelize nicely.)
- Using a 5-6 quart heavy stock pot, melt the butter. Toss in the onions and minced garlic and coat them with the melted butter. (This is where you think the pot isn't deep enough as the onions will be crowding around the top edge!) Let the onions steep at low heat for about 15 minutes.
- Stir the onions, add in the sea salt a little at t time. Stir. (If your broth has salt, cut the salt in this step in half or the soup will be too salty. Ask me how I know...)
- (This is where you pop open that bottle of wine.) Cook the onions down on a low-medium heat, stirring occasionally so they don't stick. You are looking for nicely browned onions and this will take about an hour. (Thus the wine.) When done, the meager pile of onions in the bottom of the pot will look pathetic. It's ok, forge on!
- Add stock and scrap the bottom of the pot to get all the yumminess off that the caramelizing onions left behind.
- Simmer soup for another 15 minutes. Get your ramekins, sliced bread, and cheese lined up. Put the ramekins on a baking sheet.
- Ladle soup into ramekins. Don't fill to the top, you need room for the bread and cheese! (We used the 10 ounce size and got about 12 servings.) Place bread rounds on top of soup, sprinkle cheese on top of bread.
- Put ramekins under the broiler for about 45 seconds. Keep an eye on them! The cheese goes from hard to burnt pretty quickly. You want a nice bubbly cheese on top.
- (You can now opt to share the remaining wine with everyone else.)
We had a lot more soup than I thought we'd have. We had it for dinner, then lunch, then lunch again, then dinner. It keeps in the fridge for a few days. Just ladle it out, top with bread and cheese and run under the broiler.
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