Today on Sugar Spun Run, I will be making a french onion soup.
Hey, Sugar Spun Bakers! Sam here, and today I am so excited to be bringing you another carefully tested
and well-researched recipe.
Today, we are making one of my all-time favorite comfort foods.
So let's go ahead and get right to it. Of course, the first
ingredient you're going to need is onions.
Now, you can use just sweet Vidalia onions for today's recipe,
but personally, I like to use a blend of the Vidalia and yellow onions.
This just makes the soup a little bit more robust.
Now, we're going to cut these onions by cutting them from one end to the other.
And then, you want to cut off the ends.
And, we’ll remove that skin because obviously we don't want that in our soup.
Now, if you're using two different types of onions,
I always recommend cutting the sweet onions first
because they just don't make me cry the same way that the yellow onions do.
All right, so now let's cut these with the grain to about 1/8 inch slices.
I'm going to try really hard not to cry in this video.
Alright, once you have your onions prepped, we're going to head over to the stove top.
We are going to want to grab a large soup pot.
I am using my enameled, Dutch Oven. Turn your stove top heat to medium
and we're going to add 4 tablespoons of butter into the pot.
Now, when you're making french onion soup, you're only really using a few ingredients,
so it's really important that you be selective with the ingredients you
use because the better quality the better taste your soup is going to have.
I am using a European butter just because it's going to make everything richer and taste better.
Now, once this is nice and melted we can go ahead
and add those onions into the pot and just 1/2 teaspoon of salt.
This is just table salt, though sea salt would be great too.
And we're also going to add a teaspoon of granulated sugar. Now, grab yourself a spoon
or a spatula and we're just going to stir everything together
until all of those onions are covered with a thin layer of butter.
Once you've got everything nicely combined, grab your lid
and we're just going to cover this and cook it with a lid on for about 10 minutes.
We're going to be caramelizing our onions
and covering the pot just helps jumpstart that process a little bit.
Alright, so after 10 minutes, let's take a peek, and give everything a really good stir.
You're going to need to be a little bit patient with this recipe
because caramelizing these onions is going to take some time.
In fact, it usually takes me a somewhere around an hour to get the onions nice
and brown and well caramelized.
So we are just going to stir them occasionally in the beginning.
I'm going to speed this up on camera,
so you don't have to sit here for an hour watching these onions cook.
Now in the beginning, I'm only storing these onions about every ten minutes or so,
maybe every five minutes. Now, however, as the cooking process cook moves along
and onions are starting to get softer you're going to have to stir them more frequently,
and you may even need to turn down your heat a little bit
that way you don't end up scorching them. If you're cooking your onions
and you notice that they're starting to stick or there's some browning happening on the bottom,
you’ll want to grab your beef broth and add just a little bit of, a splash of that, break up that bottom that way you
don't have anything burning to the bottom of the pan.
Our onions are almost done cooking at this point.
As you can see, they've cooked down a lot and they're finally starting to become a little bit brown.
We are going to be stirring this pretty frequently at this point, in fact, it's almost non-stop.
So at this point, I'm pretty happy with how my onions are looking.
Technically they could be even a deeper brown, but I'm pretty happy with this, so I'm going to add my wine.
You are going to need 2/3 cup of a dry white wine for this recipe.
I'm using Pinot Grigio and we'll just pour this over the onions.
Now, if you had turned your heat down you're going to want to turn it back up to medium
or even just a notch above medium
and we're going to stir constantly until that alcohol is cooked out.
We're actually cooking it into the onions and cooking
off the alcohol so you shouldn't really be able to get a
strong whiff of that wine if you lean over and smell it.
Now, this will take about five minutes or so to cook off the wine.
And once you don't have any of that liquid left in the pot, we can add our flour.
We're just going to be adding 1 1/2 tablespoons of flour. Just sprinkle that over your onions
and we'll stir this in and continue to cook while stirring for about another two minutes.
Okay, once you've cooked that flour in, you're going to want to grab your beef broth.
Now, if you make your own beef broth, your soup is going to be all that much better.
However, today I am just using a store brand.
The type and brand of broth that you are using is going to make a lot of difference in the end result for your soup.
So, you are going to need to do some taste testing
and add more salt accordingly. Now for the first half of my broth, I'm adding it slowly.
So once I've added all of that, I can go ahead and add the rest of my broth.
If I didn't say how much were using we're using 8 cups.
We'll also stir in three sprigs of fresh thyme,
two bay leaves, and 1/4 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper.
Stir everything together really well, and we're going to bring this to a boil.
So if you need to, increase your heat to medium-high.
Once you've got everything at a nice rolling boil, we’ll turn that heat back down, and just let everything simmer.
You're going to want to let this simmer for about 15 to 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, we can prepare our bread. Go ahead and pre-heat your oven to 425 degrees fahrenheit
and you're going to want to grab a loaf of French bread.
Now, let's cut this into slices that are about 3/4 inches thick.
We'll just arrange these evenly on a baking sheet.
Once your oven is preheated, we're going to pop these in the upper rack of your oven.
So that should be in the upper third of your oven and cook them for about 5 to 10 minutes
or until they're just beginning to turn a light golden brown.
All right, so once the bread is toasted what I like to do is I like to take a garlic clove, a large clove
and I'm just going to slice this in half lengthwise
and then I want to rub the surface of each piece of bread with just one side with this garlic.
It's going to give the soup a really nice flavor. Now the bread is really hot,
so I like to grab my tongs, hold it with my tongs, and then just rub the garlic against the surface.
Don't forget your soup is simmering, so you'll want to stir that occasionally.
Now before we go any further, you do want to make sure that you taste test your soup.
Most likely, you are going to need to add more salt or pepper.
Alright, so now we just have to assemble our french onion soup.
So grab yourself a nice crock and just ladle some of that soup right on in there.
And you're going to need some shredded cheese for this as well.
Today, I'm using gruyere which is a common choice.
But, if you head over to the blog post or if you read the recipe in the description,
I'll list some other options for you as well.
Now, I like to sprinkle a little bit of that cheese right on top of the soup
and then I will place as much bread as I can easily fit on top.
And then, we'll top this with even more cheese.
I usually like to put some on the edges because I just love that cheese that crisps up in the oven.
Now, I'm just making one because I'm going to be the only one eating this,
but of course you can make as many as you need. And I'm just doing this right on the baking sheet
because I'm going to just lift up that baking sheet
and then pop this right back in my oven, that should still be preheated.
And again, this is going in the upper third of your oven.
You're going to cook this for about 10 minutes or until the top is nice
and bubbly and just beginning to turn a nice golden brown.
Now once it's cooked, just let it cool for a couple minutes, so you don't burn your tongue.
And then, it's ready to enjoy!
Okay. Well, this is still hot, but that is how you make the The BEST French Onion Soup.
I can't wait for you to try this one and let me know what you think.
Thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you next time.
That's really good.