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

FAQs

How do you deepen the flavor of French onion soup? ›

If you don't have homemade beef stock, the recipe's suggested homemade or store-bought chicken stock substitutions are better than most store-bought beef stock. Asian fish sauce, cider vinegar, and sherry add depth and complexity to the broth.

Baking soda speeds up browning (that Maillard reaction you may have heard about) and leads to softer onions by breaking down the cells faster.

To elevate the canned version, quickly saute fresh onions, instead. Cook the thinly sliced onions in butter until they start to soften and take on a golden brown color, which indicates their sweet taste. The process only takes a few minutes and infuses French onion soup with a rich, decadent taste.

What Is French Onion Soup? French onion soup, or soupe à l'oignon gratinée, is a classic French dish made with caramelized onions and beef stock or broth. The soup is topped with bread and cheese, then gratinéed to rich, gooey perfection. It's traditionally served in a ramekin or a ceramic crock with a handle.

You can add extra broth, water, milk, cream (depending on the soup's base) to “water-down” the thyme flavor. Adding a neutral grain, such as rice or beans will help absorb it too.

3. Sprinkle the onions with the flour (if using; this addition gives the soup a bit more depth and body). Add the stock, wine, thyme, and bay leaf and simmer until golden brown with a rich taste, about 30 minutes.

The underlying flavor of this soup is the deep umami flavor of the caramelized onions. If you rush this process, the result will be a bitter charred flavor, and if you underestimate and skip this process the flavor will be nowhere near as deep or complex.

It just takes a bit of time to caramelize the large quantity of onions. Time is the secret ingredient to making this soup. It takes about 40 minutes (and sometimes a bit longer), for the sugars in the onions to properly caramelize.

The Onion Soup, a traditional and warming dish

It has even become a trendy dish that tourists are eager to try to experience French gastronomy. However, onion soup is in fact not part of French people's daily meals. It was originally meant to be eaten after a family reunion in the middle of the night to cure hangovers…

Perk up a Bland Soup With Simple Pantry Staples

Chances are, you could use a little more salt. Go ahead—it's ok. Salt perks up flat flavors and helps balance out bitter-tasting ingredients. Some freshly cracked pepper helps, too!

How to make soup really flavorful? ›

"Ground paprika, turmeric, nutmeg, ground ginger, and other powdered spices add a touch of color and spiciness to broths," she says. As a general rule, use fresh herbs at or near the end of cooking and dried herbs and spices early on. This helps you get the flavors you're looking for in the right balance.

Broth: You can use chicken broth or beef broth to make French onion soup. We've tried all combinations (including using half chicken and half beef broth) and have loved them all.

The easiest way to thicken your French onion soup is with flour. You can also use cornstarch if you don't have any flour. Remember to never add the flour or cornstarch directly to the soup – otherwise you run the risk of it clumping.

Also, cutting pole-to-pole results in more uniformly sized slices, both in width and length. For certain cooking preparations using onions, such as French onion soup (our recipe here), this means more manageable and uniform cooking and browning.

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.

The next time you're mixing up a pot of French onion soup, toss in a few bay leaves to upgrade the flavor a little more. The bold flavors can complement the taste of the soup and make for a more flavorful dish.

Perk up a Bland Soup With Simple Pantry Staples

Add a splash of vinegar (any kind!), or a squeeze of citrus. Chances are, you could use a little more salt. Go ahead—it's ok. Salt perks up flat flavors and helps balance out bitter-tasting ingredients.

Soak in Vinegar: It only takes about 15 minutes. Soaking raw onions in acid rinses away the harsh flavors and adds pleasant tartness. Soak in Water: Even water washes away those pesky sulfuric flavors. A quick 15-minute soak does the trick.

Caramelizing onions is a game-changer and always worth doing for a soup. However, if you've already made the soup then dilute the onion flavor by adding more of the broth used in the soup, and more vegetables. If the soup has carrots in it, the sugar of the carrots can help offset the onion.