Onion soup

A wonderfully tasty onion soup with croutons is a great idea for a delicious dinner. My recipe is very simple and at the same time has something special about it. This is a French onion soup that you can confidently make at home.

- simple and at the same time exquisite onion soup
- only a few readily available ingredients
- photos and step-by-step description of the implementation
- lots of tips and product replacements

Preparation time: 20 minutes
Soup cooking time: 1 hour 25 minutes
Oven baking time: 10 minutes
Number of portions: 1000 g of soup

Calorific value kcal: 170 in 100 g of soup

Ingredients for onion soup

• 1 kg of common onion - 5 large onions
• 80 g of clarified butter - less than half a cube
• 3/4 cup dry white wine
• 500 ml of beef broth
• 5 teaspoons of garlic flakes
  
  Herbs and spices:

teaspoon of thyme, half a teaspoon of salt and pepper, a flat teaspoon of sugar, 2 bay leaves

Ingredients for croutons

• half a long wheat baguette
• 2 tablespoons of delicate olive oil
• 50 g Gruyère or other Parmesan cheese

My glass has a capacity of 250 ml.

Calories were calculated based on the ingredients I used. So this is an approximate number of calories, because even the broth you use may have a different amount of calories from the one I used. I did not count the calories with the addition of cheese croutons.

I added homemade beef broth to the onion soup. Feel free to use my proven recipe. I always cook more broth and freeze it in 500 ml portions to defrost it for soup or sauce at any time.

Onion soup appears in our home from time to time. I noticed that I cook it more often on rainy days. Sometimes I also prepare this soup for guests. Then I cook it the day before and on the day of serving I only bake it with croutons in the oven. Everyone is delighted and surprised at the same time .. I recommend it!

Onion soup

I always prepare the onion soup in one dish. It is either a deep frying pan with a thick bottom or a favorite pot with a "convenient" capacity of about four liters. Place about 80 grams of clarified butter in the dish of your choice. You can also use 40 grams of butter and 40 grams of olive oil. Wait for the butter to melt and heat up.

Add the peeled and diced onions to the butter. I admit that I don't cut the onion very thin. In the caramelization process, the onion shrinks a lot and is super soft. It might seem that peeling and cutting a kilogram of onion takes an awful lot of time, but it's only a few minutes of crying :)

I set the burner to medium power and fry the onion uncovered for about 20 minutes. Every few minutes I mix the onion with a wooden spoon. When the onion is vitrified and soft, you can add salt, sugar and bay leaves to it. Fry the onion another 20 minutes.

After about 20 minutes, the onions will turn golden, release more liquid and reduce in volume. Add pepper, garlic and thyme to it. If you have fresh thyme, use it instead of dried thyme. Stir the onion and continue frying, not forgetting to stir it in the pot.

After 10 minutes, pour in 3/4 cup of dry white wine. Reach for a good wine with a deep taste. You can replace white wine with Vermouth, which is aromatized wine. Additionally, it contains herbs and spices. Vermouth is often sweetened with sugar or caramelized sugar (for color). I prefer to add dry white wine. Caramelized onion is sweet enough for me.

However, if you want the soup to be sweeter, I recommend vermouth or additionally a bit of cognac or brandy. If you don't want to add alcohol to your soup, you can skip it. However, I recommend that you add at least half a glass of white wine. After pouring the wine, it evaporates, leaving the soup with a characteristic taste and aroma. I recommend trying.

So after pouring the wine in, stir the soup and cook it uncovered for a few minutes, until most of the wine has evaporated.

Finally, add at least 500 ml (two glasses) of essential beef broth. With this amount of broth, the soup will be quite thick. So you can pour in more broth ... as you prefer.

As a rule, beef and vegetable broth is best for onion soup. However, if you only have chicken broth or only vegetable broth then you can use it. Beef and poultry broth works great. It is very important that it is an essential brew.

Finally, cover the pot with a lid and cook the onion soup for the last 30 minutes on the small power of the burner. The soup should only blink slightly.

After the last 30 minutes of cooking, the onion soup is ready. You can serve it right away, or after cooling it, put it in the fridge and serve it 2-3 days after cooking. The most delicious, however, is baked with croutons.

Onion soup with croutons

Cut the long wheat baguette crosswise into thin slices. Brush each slice with delicate olive oil on both sides. Preheat a large pan with a thick bottom. Put the baguette pieces on the frying pan and bake them on both sides until browned.

Place the onion soup in a convenient baking dish. I recommend cast iron pans and pots

Place the croutons in the soup bowl and grate the Gruyère cheese on the coarse meshes. Swiss cheese is very tasty and super healthy. It is a cheese made of cow's milk with a delicate, slightly nutty flavor. Unfortunately, it is also quite expensive and less available than the popular Grana Padano or Parmigiano Reggiano cheeses, which are also rennet, ripening cheeses. They are therefore a good substitute for Gruyère cheese.

Put the cheese on the toasts and the soup. Place the dish with the onion soup, croutons and cheese in the preheated oven. I usually place the soup on the middle or upstairs shelf and set it to grill from the top. After a few minutes, the cheese is baked and you can carefully remove the dish with the ready-to-serve soup.