My vegetarian French onion soup

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The recipe: this one uses a slow cooker, which is nice!

6 tablespoons butter (or a substitute if you wanna try and make this vegan instead!)

2 or 3 shallots

3 large yellow onions

1 tablespoon white sugar

3 cloves minced garlic

½ cup cooking sherry OR 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar + 1/4 cup water if you prefer a non-alcoholic substitute

8 cups reduced-sodium vegetable broth

1 teaspoon sea salt

¼ teaspoon dried thyme

1 bay leaf

Optional: 1/2 teaspoon dried herbs de provence

1 baguette, sliced

Whichever cheese you prefer (including vegan options if you want this to be vegan)- I use Boar’s Head provolone mixed with Boar’s Head Swiss since that brand uses microbial rennet, but whatever works for you! Amount varies by how cheesy you’ll want this, but I’d say count on about three-four tablespoons of cheese per person.

Instructions:

Slice the onions and shallots. Try to keep them about the same size.

Melt butter in a large pot on medium-high heat (Don’t use a nonstick one, because you’ll be caramelizing these onions). Once melted, add the onions in. Cook for about ten minutes, until translucent, then add the sugar and reduce heat to medium. Keep cooking until the onions are caramelized, about 30 minutes or so, then add the minced garlic and stir until fragrant, about one minute.

Stir the sherry/apple cider vinegar in and scrape the fonds (the browned bits) off the bottom. This is why you don’t want to use a nonstick pot, by the way! The onions have to stick a bit to leave behind those delicious caramelized fonds. 🙂 Transfer to your slow cooker, and pour in the broth. Add in the salt, thyme, bay leaf, and herbs de provence if using, stirring it all in.

Cook on high for four to six hours.

When you’re almost done, preheat your broiler. If you have oven-safe soup bowls, fill these about 3/4 of the way with soup, then add in one or two your baguette slices and however much cheese suits your fancy to each. Broil for about two minutes, until you get a lovely vat of lavalike cheese like in my picture. 🙂 If you don’t have an oven-safe bowl, don’t fret! You can put the slices of bread on a baking sheet, and top each one with about two ounces of cheese. Broil for about 1-2 minutes, until the cheese is crispy brown. Then you can put them in the bowl instead.

Enjoy!

My girlfriend and I make vegetarian French onion soup all the time! This looks delicious!

I really appreciate the detailed recipe! I’ve been craving good French onion soup but hadn’t found a recipe that I liked. Yours sounds just right!

this looks like you could freeze it and it would do well. just add your baguette and cheese after thawing/heating and voila! dinner’s ready.

Gotta try this, as I haven’t found a good vegetarian version yet 🙁 I don’t have a slow cooker though

One of my all-time favorite soups.
Looks absolutely, inviting!

The problem is the cheese…vegan cheese has never and will never melt and brown so gloriously. Looks amazing and the crock looks like the ones my parents had. A good crock makes the soup better.

I’m sorry, but any recipe that doesn’t properly caramelize the onions for a full hour is just “onion soup”.

IMO, the French part, and most of the particular flavor of this soup comes from wine (1/2 bottle) reducing to a syrup with darkly and fully caramelized onion.

As a French guy, I’ve never seen an onion soup with meat (maybe the broth but it’s easily replaceable 🤷‍♂️)

And if you like French food, I suggest you quenelles (you can do it with a mushroom cream to replace the pike) and a Seitan Bourguignon (to replace the beef, and put a a square of dark chocolate in the sauce 👌)

YUM! Mouth is salivating

That looks sooo yummy!!