French Onion Soup

The secret is in the caramelized onions! This French Onion Soup Recipe will show you that making a restaurant worthy soup at home is easier than you thought!

Try these other restaurant worthy recipes that are easy to make at home – Easy Egg Roll Recipe, Chocolate Mousse, Smothered Chicken Burritos, or this Key West Penne.

I was listening to a podcast the other day, and the person was talking about their favorite foods, and onions and garlic came up on her list. And I have to say – I’m right there at her side.

So naturally, we are big fans of French Onion Soup at our house. My husband doesn’t get soup very often when we are out, but if French Onion Soup is on the menu, he’ll get it.

And luckily, this French Onion Soup Recipe is so easy – although it does take a little bit of time. But believe me – it’s worth every minute you have to spend!

How to Caramelize Onions

Caramelizing onions is really easy, but it does take some time. Just be patient!

1. Start by cutting the onions into slices. I do half moon slices. You want thin-ish slices. If they are too thin, they will just fall apart.
2. Heat olive oil and butter in your soup pot. Add the onions and stir to combine.
3. Let the onions cook, stirring occasionally. The trick here is to cook the onions without burning them. So you’ll want to stir them every 5-10 minutes, but you want to let them sit in the pan as much as possible so that they will brown.
4. Let them cook until they are a deep brown color.

• If you want to speed up the process, you can add in a bit of sugar or honey, only about 1-2 teaspoons.

Ingredients

• Oil & Butter: As stated above, you will use both butter and oil to caramelize the onions. I like to use extra virgin olive oil and unsalted butter.
• Onions: I don’t usually get too picky with the kind of onions, but I prefer yellow onions for this soup. They will sweeten as they caramelize, so I find that sweet onions are a little overkill. You could also use white onions, but the yellow onions will give you better flavor.
• Garlic: I always like to use freshly minced garlic.
• Thyme: You will need some dried thyme for seasoning the soup. If you have fresh thyme, it’s even better! Just up the amount to about a tablespoon if using fresh.
• Salt and Pepper: Since there are not a lot of ingredients in this soup, it’s important to make sure you season it properly. Make sure to taste and add more salt and pepper as needed.
• Broth: Beef broth will give you the most flavor. Use beef stock for an even more concentrated flavor. If you want to keep things vegetarian, you can use vegetable stock instead.
• Worcestershire Sauce: For a vegetarian option, swap in some soy sauce for the Worcestershire sauce.
• Baguette: You’ll want a good baguette to top the soup. I just get mine in the bakery section of the grocery store.
• Cheese: This recipe calls for Gruyere cheese, but read below for more options if you can’t find gruyere.

What Kind of Cheese To Use For French Onion Soup

Traditionally, French Onion Soup is always topped with a slice of baguette and gruyere cheese. And there are some that would say that it needs to be gruyere or nothing.

I do agree that gruyere is the best cheese to use in French Onion Soup, but I will admit to using Monterey Jack once in a pinch and I thought it was delicious. You could also use Swiss cheese. Adding some Parmesan is delicious, as well!

How to Make French Onion Soup

This French Onion Soup recipe is very easy, although it does take a little bit of time.

1. Start by caramelizing the onions as listed above. If you want, you can always caramelize the onions in advance and store them in the refrigerator until you are ready to make the soup.
2. Once the onions are caramelized, Season with salt and pepper and thyme.
3. Add about 1/2 cup of beef broth to the pan and scrape up all of the brown bits. Traditionally, you would use white wine right here, but since I don’t drink, I don’t ever have an open bottle of wine sitting around. So I just use beef broth.
4. Pour in the remaining beef broth and the Worcestershire sauce.
5. At this point you can allow the soup to simmer for awhile, or you can move onto serving the soup.
6. Preheat the oven to 450ºF.
7. Divide the soup between 4 oven-safe bowls.
8. Top each with 1-2 slices of baguette, then divide the cheese among the 4 bowls.
9. Place the bowls on a baking sheet, then transfer to the oven to cook until the cheese is browned and melted.
10. Serve, but be careful because the bowls will be very hot coming out of the oven.

More Soup Recipes:

• Chicken and Gnocchi Soup
• White Chicken Chili
• Chicken Tortellini Soup
• Ham and Potato Soup
• Beef Stew
• Lasagna Soup Recipe
• Homemade Bean and Bacon Soup
• Minestrone

Tools Used for this recipe

A large Dutch Oven is perfect for making this recipe.
These bowls are similar to the ones I have, and they are oven safe as well!

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French Onion Soup

5 from 5 votes

Author: Deborah Harroun

Prep Time: 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour hour 10 minutes minutes

Total Time: 1 hour hour 25 minutes minutes

Servings: 4 servings

Course: Soup

Cuisine: French

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The secret is in the caramelized onions! This French Onion Soup Recipe will show you that making a restaurant worthy soup at home is easier than you thought!

1x2x3x

Ingredients

• ▢ 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• ▢ 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• ▢ 2 pounds yellow onions ,sliced
• ▢ 1 clove garlic ,minced
• ▢ 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• ▢ Salt and pepper
• ▢ 4 cups beef broth
• ▢ 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• ▢ 1/2 baguette ,cut into slices
• ▢ 2 cups shredded Gruyere cheese

Instructions

• In a large, heavy soup pan or Dutch oven, heat the olive oil and butter over medium heat. Add the onions and stir to coat the onions. Continue to cook, stirring every 5-10 minutes, until the onions start to brown. You want to make sure to stir them often enough so that they don’t burn, but you don’t want to stir them too often because then they won’t caramelize. If they ever seem to get to dry and start to burn, you can add a little bit of extra oil.
• When they start to get brown, stir in the garlic. Continue to cook the onions until they are a dark, golden, rich brown color. This can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. Stir in the thyme and season with salt and pepper.
• Stir in about 1/2 cup of the beef broth, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Add the remaining beef broth. Stir in the Worcestershire sauce. Cook until warmed through.
• Heat the oven to 450ºF.
• Divide the soup between 4 oven safe bowls. Top each with a slice of baguette or two, depending on the size of your baguette and bowl, then top with 1/4 of the shredded gruyere.
• Place all of the bowls on a baking sheet and transfer to the oven. Bake until the cheese is melted and bubbling, about 5 minutes.
• Serve warm, but be careful because the bowl will be very hot coming out of the oven.

Recipe Notes:

Nutrition information provided as an estimate only. Various brands and products can change the counts. Any nutritional information should only be used as a general guideline.

Nutrition Information

Serving: 1/4 of recipe, Calories: 456kcal (23%), Carbohydrates: 37g (12%), Protein: 20g (40%), Fat: 25g (38%), Saturated Fat: 14g (88%), Polyunsaturated Fat: 3g, Cholesterol: 48mg (16%), Sodium: 1244mg (54%), Fiber: 5g (21%), Sugar: 16g (18%)

Keywords: french onion soup, french onion soup recipe