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Posted: 02/14/2019

French Onion Soup

Name: French Onion Soup
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 1 h 10 min
Total time: 1 h 30 min
Cuisine: French
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

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes ★★★★★ 2 Reviews Jump to Recipe

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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!

PIN IT FOR LATER!

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!

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.
Heat olive oil and butter in your soup pot. Add the onions and stir to combine.
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.
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.

How to Make It

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

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.
Once the onions are caramelized, Season with salt and pepper and thyme.
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.
Pour in the remaining beef broth and the Worcestershire sauce.
At this point you can allow the soup to simmer for awhile, or you can move onto serving the soup.
Preheat the oven to 450ºF.
Divide the soup between 4 oven-safe bowls.
Top each with 1-2 slices of baguette, then divide the cheese among the 4 bowls.
Place the bowls on a baking sheet, then transfer to the oven to cook until the cheese is browned and melted.
Serve, but be careful because the bowls will be very hot coming out of the oven.

What Kind of Cheese To Use

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!

More Soup Recipes:

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!

Looking for the Rachael Ray French Onion Soup that used to be posted here? You can find that recipe here.

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