French Onion Soup

This French Onion Soup is easy to make, and while my husband makes a traditional version, I make a vegetarian version.  You can freeze and refrigerate many of the ingredients so that you have them on hand to make this recipe with less prep time.

Ingredients:

~ baguette
~ olive oil
~ 1 large onion (we usually choose yellow)
~ vegetable broth or bouillon
~ Swiss Gruyere cheese

Preparing the Croutons

The first step to this recipe is preparing your soup croutons ahead of time.  For this you will need a baguette. 

Slice into approx. 3/4″ slices, drizzle with olive oil, and place on a cookie sheet.  Bake at 275 degrees until completely hard.  This will depend on your bread, but our last batch took 1.5 hours.

We prepare a lot of croutons and then keep a bunch on hand, sealed in an airtight bag in the freezer.  This makes it easy to quickly prepare French Onion Soup any time.

Preparing the Soup

For each soup serving, we use 1/2 to 1 whole onion, depending on the size of the onion. You can also saute multiple onions if prepping extra ingredients ahead of time.

Cut up your onion, and caramelize in a pan with butter or olive oil.  Like the croutons, you can make a very large batch and freeze.

Prepare a bowl of broth.  You can use regular beef broth, or a vegetable bullion.  I use Organic Better Than Bouillon Vegetable Base, which comes as a concentrate/paste in a jar.

Add the onions.  For one serving I use several heaping tablespoons, but it is up to your personal preference just how much you want.

At this point, make sure that your broth/onions are very hot, so you may want to pop your bowl in the microwave.

Place your bread/croutons on top of the soup.  Have your cheese sliced so that the bread doesn’t sit in the hot broth and get soggy.

Place slices of Swiss Gruyere cheese on top.

Place your soup bowl(s) on a cookie sheet in the oven, broiling until the cheese is melting and bubbly (and as crisp as you like!).

Enjoy!