French Onion Soup

The first time I had French Onion Soup at a famous restaurant in Paris, the Quartier Latin, I was pretty skeptical. I didn’t feel like eating onions and crying for their pungent smell. Well, this was many years ago! Now I can tell you: it’s absolutely worth trying because it has nothing to do with the pungent odor of raw onions! And it’s delicious. French Onion Soup will surprise you with its sweet smell of cooked onions and melted cheese.

This soup was once considered the food of the poor, since onion, stale bread and chicken stock are all chep ingredients. You can even replace the chicken broth with vegetable stock.  

The onion soup was already a popular dish since Roman times. Then and now, onions were a low-cost ingredient and easy to grow. So let’s get started!

What you need

The classic recipe has animal-sourced ingredients, like butter and chicken broth. You can make a slightly different soup, though. You can make a vegetarian French Onion Soup by replacing chicken stock with a vegetal one or even a vegan soup by replacing butter with extra virgin olive oil. Its taste will be slightly different but very close to the classic recipe.

For four servings :

• Vegetable stock (in the classic onion soup they use chicken broth)
• 5 big onions
• Extra-virgin olive oil (traditionally they use butter)
• A few spoons of flour
• Grated Emmenthal or Gruyère cheese
• Salt

1. Peel 5 large onions and cut them into thin slices.
2. In a large saucepan or casserole put a bit of butter and 2 tablespoons of olive oil or just olive oil. Add the sliced onions.  Make them sweat without browning.
3. Off the cooker, add a spoonful of flour and cook for a few more minutes while stirring.
4. Sprinkle with the chicken stock or vegetal broth.

Add salt to taste.

You can choose between two different cooking methods:

Method 1

Leave to cook for about 20 min. Serve the onion soup hot and cover each portion with bread croutons and grated cheese such as Emmenthal or Gruyère.

Method 2

Turn the oven on to 200 °C. Take four oven bowls and put in each one alternatively 2-3 slices of bread and grated cheese, then add the onion soup. Cook 15 minutes and serve hot.

In both cases it will taste delicious. Bon appétit !