Easy French Onion Soup Recipe (Seriously, The Only Recipe You Need!) (2024)

FAQs

Is French onion soup for the poor? ›

The story behind this famous soup

In ancient times, Romans saw it as a dish for the poor. This is due to the fact that onion cultivation was accessible to all, especially to peasants.

What is the Difference Between Onion Soup and French Onion Soup? French onion soup is always made with beef stock. Other onion soups can be made with chicken, vegetable, or beef stock. Additionally, French onion soup typically contains wine or sherry, which isn't typical or necessary in other onion soups.

Fresh thyme: always go with fresh thyme sprigs over dried. Worcestershire sauce: the flavors in Worcestershire sauce are a mix of vinegar, garlic, chile, molasses, etc. which act as the French onion soup spices. A tablespoon goes a long way to help bring out the umami flavors.

The key to good French onion soup is to cook the onions so long that they threaten to melt into a viscous, dark brown paste, à la Marmite. As has already been extensively reported in Slate, there are no shortcuts when you're caramelizing onions; it always takes at least an hour, usually longer.

Onions are a great source of soluble fibre and therefore a good prebiotic; food for the good gut bacteria. Optimal gut health is crucial for weight loss and this delicious soup provides great nutrients to help boost weight loss as part of a weight management programme.

French onion soup is the ultimate comfort food. Onions get slowly cooked until sweet and caramelized, then simmered in rich broth until they're practically falling apart. To finish it off, toasted bread is added to give it that lovable crisp-gone-soggy texture and a generous amount of Gruyère cheese is melted on top.

First, French onion soup calls for a ton of onions. While onions aren't expensive, there's a lot of labor involved in halving, peeling, and slicing 10, 12, 50, or one billion onions (I don't know how much soup you make).

Made slightly thicker than most watered down soups because every mouthful NEEDS a slightly thickened texture to compliment the caramelized onions.

This soup traditionally is made with beef stock, though sometimes a good beef stock can be hard to come by and expensive to make. If you use boxed stock, taste it first! If you don't like the taste, don't use it. (If you cook a lot of beef or beef roasts, save the scraps and freeze them to make a stock with later.)

If you don't add enough salt, pepper, or other herbs and spices, the soup may taste bland.

What pairs well with French onion soup? ›

Onion soup, at its very essence, is nothing more than onions and water boiled together. Period, done, finished, everything added from that point on is pure opinion. Caramelizing the onions brings out sugars, and makes a more luxurious silky and sweet soup, adding flour gently thickens and provides body.

“Brandy really just helps to concentrate all of the flavors together and works to bring out the flavors present in the herbs and the onions,” says Jonathan Pacheco, head chef at Café Paulette.

On the other hand, you can not caramelize onions for too long – they will be bitter. Salting the onions at the beginning of cooking helps to soften them more quickly. Photo 2 – this is how the onions will look like after 15 minutes of cooking time. Photo 3 – this is how they look like after 30 minutes.

For French onion soup, consider reaching for a red wine with spice notes, such as Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Noir. These varietals add a subtle kick of pepper and earthiness that play well with the soup's rich flavors.

Because onion soup has long been deemed a hangover cure, the French equivalent of a 2 AM slice of pizza or falafel wrap. It's a tradition that may have gotten its start at the ancestor of the world's largest food market in Paris. The market known as Les Halles was founded in 1135 by King Philippe-Auguste.

Grain and Pulse Soups:

Grain and pulse soups were also popular in medieval times. These soups were made with grains such as barley or oats, along with pulses like lentils or peas. This type of soup was often consumed by the poor as it was filling and inexpensive.

With such a soup, a knife is your friend, not your enemy. Using both the soup spoon and the knife, push the baked cheese against the rim of the cup or bowl and cut it gently with the knife. Once you've broken the cheese barrier, you can use the knife again to nudge bits of cheese onto the spoon.

In general the onion was regarded as peasant food and the upper classes avoided it: in the middle of the 18th century a cookery book by the head chef to a French prince included a recipe for "peasant-style onion soup" – soupe à l'oignon à la Paysanne.