How to Make French Onion Soup Like a Pro – French Onion Soup from Bouchon

“The more basic the soup, the more critical the details”. French onion is quite a basic soup, but with cheese, bread, sweet vegetable, and meat broth, it’s is an amazing classic for good reason. Everything melts together and tastes even even better when the weather is cold. Dip some bread from a baguette to amplify it even more.

This will most likely be the most onions you work with at one time. I used 7 onions, the recipe calls for 8, but my large bowl was overflowing and my eyes were sizzling. It was actually hard to be in the room! When working with onions, I am always impressed with how much they cook down, every single time. You think there is no way this enormous bowl is only going to yield 1 1/2 – 2 cups of onions, but onions are an amazingly powerful vegetable that works wonders.

You can make this dish ahead of time, and actually will get better with time to keep the flavors melting together, which makes for excellent leftovers as well. Give this a try, you wont be sorry.

Cookbook – Bouchon

Ingredients –

Sachet – (These ingredients, wrapped in cheese cloth, and sealed with string)

Bay leaves – 2
Black peppercorns – 12
Thyme spring – 6

Soup –

Yellow onions – 7-8
8 tablespoons unsalted butter
Salt
All purpose flour – 1 1/2 tsp
Beef stock – I used store bought (don’t kill me Thomas) – Can also use vegetable stock, or even water.
Black pepper
Red wine vinegar

Croutons –

Baguette
Olive oil

To finish –

Comte cheese, sliced or shredded

Tools –

Large pot or pan
Coquettes or small oven safe bowls

Step 1 – Onions onions onions

Okay so this takes a while.

Cut the onions into uniform pieces of similar size and shape. This is to make sure the onions all caramelize at the same pace. It’s a lot of onions. Beware for your eyes, but power through, feel free to take a few breaks along the way. Discard the centers of each.

Melt the butter in a heavy large pan or pot over medium heat, add the onions and 1 tbsp of salt. Reduce the heat to low, stirring every 10-15 minutes, the mixture should be lightly bubbling. Make sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl/pan. The caramelization should take about 5 hours to complete, so take a seat and watch the magic happen. Slow cooking is the key to getting major flavor within the onions. Good cooking waits for no one as they say.

Step 2 – Continuing the Soup

After the 5 hours, the onions should be looking and smelling amazing. If you are ready to continue…

Stir in the all purpose flour over medium heat, cook for about 2-3 minutes. Mix in the beef stock, I ended up putting in about a carton and 1/3. Simmer for about an hour, the liquid will have reduced slightly. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and add in a few drops of vinegar. Remove from the heat.

Step 3 – Make the Croutons

If you timed this right and are looking to eat this for dinner, you can do this step while the onions are cooking.

Preheat the oven to 500 F, or as high as the oven will go.

Slice the baguette into thin slices. Place onto a baking tray, brush each side with olive oil and place into the oven when fully preheated.

Watch the baguette slices closely, when browned, pull them out and set aside.

Step 4 – Properly Finish the Soup

Turn on the broiler, return the soup to a simmer.

We used Star Wars croquettes to put the soup in (thanks Sam and Rob). But use any small oven safe dish.

Place a few ladles of soup into the coquettes, leaving some room at the top. Place the croutons on tops, and then then cheese on top of that. Place in the oven, take out when the cheese starts to brown and is gooey.

Well there you have it, enjoy enjoy enjoy. Let me know what you think in the comments below!

And for the ratings –

Difficulty of ingredients to find – 3/5 stars – a normal trip to the store will probably work
Perceived difficulty going into the recipe – 3/5 stars – this is more about time, not pure technique
Difficulty after recipe – 3/5 stars – yeah so this just takes a little while
Time taken – 5/5 stars – well over 4 hours
Taste – 5/5 stars – French onion soup done right it outrageous
Make again? 5/5 stars – oh yes, no doubt