French Onion Soup

Logan may not like to cook, but I sure do! My main character in the Logan McKenna Mystery series is famous for assembling vs cooking, but we do have one thing in common, we love to eat! I used to only order this soup out at restaurants, but during the Covid shutdown I realized how easy it was to make and now we have it often. It is warming in the winter, but with a tossed salad, makes for a light lunch or dinner any time of year. Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS

• ~4 cups thinly sliced onions. You can use any variety, but yellow work well.
• 1/2 cup dry white wine (and some for you to sip while you are carmelizing the onions, ha!)
• 2 T cooking sherry (one or the other will do)
• 1 tsp dried thyme and a sprig or two of fresh thyme to garnish if you have some
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter (salted works okay-just don’t add salt later)
• 2 T olive oil
• ~40 oz good beef bone broth, stock – whatever you have on hand (that’s 4 10.5 oz cans if you use those or a box and a half)
• Gruyere cheese and good croutons or slices of baguette-sourdough, whatever bread you like. Use parmigiano reggiano in a pinch.

DIRECTIONS

• Put on some French cafe music, pour yourself a small glass of wine (you will be near live flames after all. . .), pull out a medium to large heavy pot and your favorite long wooden spoon. Melt the butter, add the onions and stir to coat onions with butter.
• Oh, and pull up a stool, you’re going to be here for a while!
• Stir the onions over medium heat until carmelized. This will take at least 30-45 minutes. Really. When they are a lovely brown, pour in the beef broth, dried thyme, wine, and/or sherry. Simmer for another 30 minutes.
• The last step is where you can get fancy, or be lazy – it’s up to you. For the best presentation, ladle the soup into individual, oven-proof bowls, place your croutons or baguette slice on top of each bowl with a slice of Gruyere, then broil until cheese is browned and bubbly. BE VERY CAREFUL not to burn it at this stage. When I’m making this for us at home, I just throw it all in the bowl, it melts and it’s all good without risking burning the house down.

Serve with a simple, tossed green salad and Voila!  DINNER!

And here’s a quick look at what carmelized onions should look like. I go about 40 minutes on mine. Many French Onion soup recipes include sugar. DO NOT ADD SUGAR! Trust me, you won’t need it. The sweetness comes naturally from carmelizing the onions.