Tremendous French Onion Soup
Prep
15m
Cook
90m
Total
105m
Bigly says
Sit. Pour yourself a coffee. We're doing this right. French onion soup. Tremendous French onion soup. The greatest French onion soup in the history of French onion soup — and there's been a LOT of French onion soup, the French have been at this for centuries, they basically had nothing else to do up there, no streaming services, no apps, just onions and time — but this soup, MY soup, the one I'm about to give you, beats every single bistro in Paris. Every one. It's a slaughter.
Here's what nobody tells you. The entire trick to French onion soup is the onions. The ONIONS. Shocking, I know. Most so-called chefs will tell you to cook them fifteen minutes and call it caramelized. Fifteen minutes. That's an INSULT to the onion. The onion deserves more. The onion deserves an HOUR. Scientists — and I've talked to scientists, very smart people, the smartest — explained the Maillard reaction to me, took a guy with a PhD ninety minutes to walk me through it, worth every second, and the bottom line is you cannot RUSH chemistry. You cannot. Period.
The broth, the cheese, the toast — all important, all tremendous, all part of the symphony — but if your onions are pale and crunchy you have failed. You've made onion water. You've made a disgrace. The kind of soup a chef on TV would serve and act proud of — you know the one — does this completely wrong. We are not doing that here. We are standing at the stove, we are stirring, we are letting the onions get JAMMY, mahogany, almost-burnt-but-not-quite, and we are making something restaurants charge twenty-eight dollars for. Believe me.
Ingredients
- 3 lbyellow onions, thinly sliced(about 6 large onions, do not skimp, the onion is the engine)
- 4 tbspunsalted butter
- 2 tbspolive oil
- 1 tsp, plus more to tastekosher salt
- 1 tspgranulated sugar(helps the onions brown, do not skip)
- 1 tbspfresh thyme leaves
- 2bay leaves
- 3 clovesgarlic, minced
- 2 tbspall-purpose flour
- 1/2 cupdry white wine or dry sherry
- 8 cupsbeef stock(real beef stock, not bouillon cube water)
- 1 tbspWorcestershire sauce
- 1/2 tspblack pepper
- 1baguette, sliced 3/4-inch thick(day-old is better)
- 8 ozGruyere cheese, grated(real Gruyere, not pre-shredded sawdust)
- 1/4 cupParmesan cheese, grated
Steps
- 1
Melt butter with olive oil in a large heavy-bottomed Dutch oven over medium heat.
- 2
Add the sliced onions and salt. Stir to coat. Cook 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until softened and translucent.
- 3
Reduce heat to medium-low. Add the sugar and continue cooking 45-60 minutes, stirring every 5-10 minutes, until the onions are deeply golden brown and jammy. Scrape any fond off the bottom as it forms.
- 4
Add the garlic, thyme, and bay leaves. Cook 1 minute until fragrant.
- 5
Sprinkle the flour over the onions and stir to coat. Cook 2 minutes to remove the raw flour taste.
- 6
Pour in the wine or sherry, scraping the bottom of the pot to deglaze. Simmer 2 minutes until reduced by half.
- 7
Add the beef stock, Worcestershire, and black pepper. Bring to a simmer and cook uncovered 20-25 minutes to concentrate the flavor. Taste and adjust salt. Remove the bay leaves.
- 8
While the soup simmers, preheat the broiler. Arrange baguette slices on a sheet pan and toast 1-2 minutes per side until golden and dry. Set aside.
- 9
Ladle the soup into oven-safe crocks or bowls, leaving 1 inch of headroom. Float 2 baguette slices on top of each, then mound generously with grated Gruyere and a sprinkle of Parmesan.
- 10
Place the crocks on a sheet pan and broil 2-4 minutes, watching closely, until the cheese is melted, bubbling, and browned in spots. Serve immediately.
One more thing
That's the soup. Sixty minutes of patient stirring and you've built something bistros charge twenty-eight dollars for and don't even do as well. They put a tiny shy little piece of bread on top, a piece you can barely see, like they're embarrassed of the bread — embarrassed of the bread, in PARIS, where bread is basically the local sport — and they call it cuisine. This isn't cuisine. This is dinner. Pull the crock out of the broiler, the cheese is browned, the bread is soft underneath, the onions are doing their thing in the broth, and you just KNOW you have made the greatest version of this soup that has ever crossed your table. Now go eat.
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