French Onion Soup

I like many was underwhelmed by the original rate of this recipe. It took a LOT of doctoring to be good. I caramelized the onion, double the thyme, added garlic, worchester sauce, and beef flavor boaster, brandy, and tripled the wine. After ALL that it was great. Try Ina's recipe, it's much better.

I first made this recipe back in 2005 when I saw it in the January issue of Cooking Light. I've made it several times and put a comment on my recipe "Still the Best!". This is as good or better than some of the best onion soup I've had eating out. I love to cook, but what I enjoy about this recipe is the simplicity. I don't braise any meat, I don't make any special stock, I don't add any additional ingredients. The only thing I did was reduce the amount from 8 servings to 4 when I only make if for my husband and myself and I do use Provolone or Gruyère cheese . I find the onions have a wonderful color, and the overall flavor is perfect. One recipe I don't mess with, and we LOVE it!

I love French Onion Soup and this recipe is lovely. I would have given it FIVE STARS if the instructions had been written to give the best results. FIRST: take the time to make your own beef stock ahead of time (Emeril Lagasse has a nice recipe online) and remove all the fat (easily done by refrigerating overnight). You can freeze the extra stock for use in other recipes. SECOND: read a couple "how-to caramelize onions" posts and allow the hour to hour-and-a-half to do this properly. I'm not certain why museumnerd had an issue with the sweetness added by half TEASPOON of sugar. Maui, Vidalia and Walla Walla onions are naturally sweet (same onion seed grown in similar soil type) and the sugar can be omitted. Personally, I will portion with one and one-half cups of soup with 1 ounce cheese and 1 ounce bread. The soup alone is about 90 calories per cup.

i made this soup several days ago. i followed another reviewer's advice and let the onions cook for about 45 minutes to really let the flavor deepen. i realized that i couldn't let the soup simmer the full 2 hours it called for, so i deepened the flavor by cheating a little and adding maybe 1/2 tsp of soy sauce (maybe less -- a small splash). at the time, the soup was good. then it sat in the fridge for a couple of days and the soup was tremendous. if given a couple of days to really let the flavors meld, i would put this up against any restaurant's french onion soup. i'll definitely make this again. this recipe is a winner!

My husband and I are just back from a week-long trip to Paris where we had French onion soup every time we found it on the menu. We hadn't had enough so I tried this version. I used the beef stock recipe from the April 2005 issue of Cooking Light and the soup was every bit as good as those we'd had in Paris bistos.