French Onion Soup

In spite of the heat we really enjoy a good bowl of soup. Every day for lunch we have soup and a yogurt. Love it! You'd think the pounds would be flying off me, eating soup for lunch, but we also love our cheeses and beef and cream with some dinners. That is going to have to stop...or cut back....but in the meantime, here is a pretty good recipe for soup that we enjoyed awhile back and I neglected to post.

Kitchen is closed tonight but we'll be sure to have this one again very soon.

French Onion Soup

My coworker Shelia Randolph had some lovely large Vidalia onions the other day. She kindly gave me one so I could make soup.


I adapted an Alton Brown recipe which called for sherry, which we didn't have, and quantities to serve eight people. It's a winner and one I would recommend...if you like onions.

You'll need the following Ingredients:




2 or 3 sweet onions (like Vidalias) or a combination of sweet and red onions (I used Vidalias)

2 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups white wine

10 ounces canned beef broth

3/4 cup chicken broth

a bit of apple cider per your taste

Bouquet garni; thyme sprigs, bay leaf and parsley tied together with kitchen string

French bread, sliced into half inch pieces

salt and pepper

Fontina cheese, sliced or grated


Trim the ends off each onion then halve lengthwise. After removing peel, finely slice into half moon shapes.



Melt butter in a skillet or deep pan then add a layer of onions. Sprinkle with a little salt.

Repeat layering onions and salt until all onions are in the skillet.



Let onions sweat down for 15 minutes. After that, stir occasionally until onions are caramelish in color and reduced to approximately 2 cups. This should take 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending on your stove.



Add enough wine to cover the onions and turn heat to medium, reducing the wine to a syrup consistency. Add broths, apple cider and bouquet garni. Reduce heat and simmer 15 to 20 minutes.

Can't believe I forgot to take a photo of the broth simmering. But that's not terribly exciting anyway so....no loss.


IF you have crocks that will withstand the broiler then place oven rack in top 1/3 of oven and heat broiler. My crocks can't withstand broiler temps so I just heated our oven to 400 degrees.

Cut bread in rounds large enough to fit mouth of oven safe soup crocks. Toast the bread in the oven or just use a toaster.


Season soup mixture with salt and pepper. Remove bouquet garni and ladle soup into crocks leaving one inch to the lip. Place toasted bread on top of soup and top with grated Fontina cheese.

Safety Note: Place crocks on a cookie sheet for easy removal from the oven. Hot soup sloshing across your wrist is a disaster on so many levels. The pain, the seared flesh, the flying hot crockery and clean up. No soup to eat...... just use the cookie sheet.


Broil until cheese is bubbly and golden, 1 to 2 minutes. OR just place the cookie sheet and crocks in the 400 degree oven. When cheese is melted - you have this to put on the table.



Soup for me is a true comfort food. This one will surely make the rounds at our table again.