French Onion Soup

Most vegetarians know by now that ordering French onion soup at a restaurant is pretty much a no-go. The good news is, you can make a really delicious version at home that even your meat-eating friends will love (really – I tested this on several meat-eaters). The bad news is that great French onion soup takes a really long time to make. Luckily you don’t need to babysit the onions for the whole time, so if you’re really craving this dish, you can still multi-task while you’re making it.

What You Need:
6 large sweet onions (like yellow, Spanish or Vidalia)
2 tbsp butter
¼ cup cognac or sherry
2 bay leaves
4 sprigs of thyme leaves
3 cups vegetable broth
4 cups water (plus more if needed for deglazing)
1 5×6 strip of kombu
¼ cup of dried mushrooms (shitake work really well)
1 French baguette
2 cups Gruyère cheese, grated
Salt and pepper to taste

What to Do:
Warm the skillet over medium-low heat. Slice the onions very thinly and add to the skillet. Sprinkle with a generous pinch of salt.  Let them slowly reduce uncovered for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. The onions will release a lot of their water.

Add in the butter and continue to let cook for about an hour and a half. During this point, you don’t need to supervise too much. The onions should get deep golden brown in color.

While you are waiting for the onions, you can use part of that time to make the broth. Bring the vegetable broth and water to boil in a large pot. Remove from the heat and add in the kombu and dried mushrooms. Let soak for 30 minutes to 1 hour before discarding the kombu and dried mushrooms.

Returning back to the onions, they will need to be cooked down for another 15 to minutes until they are a dark reddish-brown in color. Once they’ve reached that color, add the sherry or cognac to deglaze the pan. If you need more liquid to get all the bits from the bottom of the pan, then use a bit of water. Once the sherry or cognac has cooked off, add in the broth that you made earlier along with the thyme, bay leaves. Cover and let simmer for 30 minutes. Remove herbs and season with salt and pepper to taste.

While the soup simmers, slice the baguette and toast the slices in the oven at 375 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes (until the bread is crispy and golden in color).

Ladle the soup into serving bowls, top each bowl with the toasted bread and sprinkle evenly with Gruyère. Broil in the oven for 3 to 5 minutes, until the cheese is bubbling but not burnt.

Notes:

-       The onions can be cooked up to 3 days in advance. Just follow the instructions all the way until adding the broth. You can deglaze the pan, let the onions cool and store in the refrigerator. Just warm them up again before adding the broth.

-       The broth can also be made a few days ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator.