A warm, hearty French onion soup that’s perfect for chilly days! Mine features some freshly baked, homemade sourdough.
The first week in January, we got a snowstorm. The kids were supposed to back to school after winter break, but that time off got extended by almost a full week. We received 5-6 inches of snow, and remnants of the snow remained on our yard for two weeks afterwards.
Obviously, temperatures were pretty chilly, and my family and I were craving some warm and hearty comfort food. In most situations, we would go out for a big bowl of Vietnamese pho, but we didn’t want to chance it with the Omicron variant lurking around the corner.
Instead, I opted to make French onion soup. I had just baked two loaves of sourdough (I gave one whole loaf away) and thought it would be great to top the soup with the bread.
Addie watched me caramelize the onions and got bored about 2 minutes in. About 40 minutes later, she was asking why I was still cooking. I told her that the caramelization process required a lot of patience, but the end result would be worthwhile.
Once the onions were done caramelizing, the rest of it was easy. I ladled in some beef stock, let it cook, and transferred it to my ramekins. I put a slice of my sourdough on top, sprinkled it with some cheese and put it in the broiler for a few minutes. And voila – lunch was served.
The star of the dish (other than the amazing onions, of course) was the bread. Each of us had several slices, as it paired perfectly with the sweetness of the soup. We were all sad when we finished up the leftover soup and ate the rest of the bread, but that just means that I’ll have to make this again.
Husband’s rating: 4.5 out of 5
Addie’s rating: 4 out of 5
My rating: 4.5 out of 5
French onion soup
Ingredients
- 3 Tablespoons unsalted butter
- 8 large onions sliced
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 5 cups beef stock divided
- 1 Tablespoon all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon ground pepper
- sourdough bread cut into slices
- 1 cup gruyere cheese grated
Instructions
- Note: The onions will take between 45-60 minutes to caramelize. Be patient - it will be worthwhile.
- In a heavy-bottomed Dutch oven, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onions and ½ teaspoon of salt. Stir and cover for about 5 minutes to let the onions soften a bit.
- Remove the lid and let the onions continue to cook while you constantly stir. This process will test your patience - it may take up to 1 hour to fully caramelize the onions. Mine were done in about 40 minutes but your stovetop may yield different results. Keep an eye on the onions. If they start to burn, add a splash of beef stock or water and turn down the heat.
- After the onions have successfully caramelized, add in 1 cup of the beef stock. Add the flour and mix well.
- Slowly stream in the rest of the beef stock and season with salt and pepper as desired. Let the soup cook for another 10 minutes or so. If you don't like your soup so onion-y, you can add more broth. We like ours with a ton of onions so we kept the soup at a minimum.
- Evenly distribute the soup into oven-safe ramekins. Top each one with a slice of sourdough bread (you can substitute with French bread). Sprinkle the top with gruyere cheese and put it in the broiler for 1-2 minutes or until the cheese has fully melted.
- Serve immediately.