Easy French Onion Soup Recipe (2024)

Classic and authentic French Onion Soup Recipe with caramelized onion, french bread, and melted cheese! You won’t believe how easy it is to make with these helpful step by step photo instructions.

Here are some of our favorite sides to that go great with French onion soup: rustic overnight bread, ribeye steak.

Delicious Homemade French Onion Soup

French onion soup is a classic soup that is made with meat stock, caramelized onions, baguette/crusty bread (or croutons) and covered with cheese. This soup is served in most restaurants across the US, however, making this homemade soup will give it much more flavor.

What kind of cheese goes best on French onion soup?

Classic french onion soup is topped with gruyere. However, not everyone has this cheese or wants to use it. People use a wide variety of cheeses like mozzarella, parmesan, swiss, and fontina. Some recipes even mix different cheeses together. For this recipe, I used fontina and really enjoyed the addition of flavor that it put in the soup.

Here is another great cheese dish to try, cheesy eggplant parmesan.

What kind of onions do you use?

Yellow sweet onions are, in my opinion, the best choice. They add rich flavor and sweetness, while only having a mild bitterness to them. This is, of course, a personal preference. Some recipes use red onions, shallots, or even a combination.

How to make French onion soup

Onion caramelization

• Now take your sweet yellow onion and slice them into strips. Now take a pot and heat your butter and olive oil over medium-high heat. After you add your sliced onions, let them cook for about 15-20 minutes. Make sure to keep stirring.
• Once the onion has slightly caramelized, add the minced garlic, dried thyme, salt, and pepper. Then lower the heat to medium and let the onion and spices cook for about 4 minutes.

The broth

• Bring the heat back to high and add the dry sherry. Stir it all together for about 3 minutes to let the wine cookout. Now pour the beef broth into the pot and let it simmer for another 15 minutes.

Prepping the bread

• Now place the sliced French bread onto a baking sheet and bake in an oven at 360 degrees until golden brown.

Broiling your cheese

• Fill your bowl (oven-safe bowls) with the soup and place 2 pieces of French bread on top of the soup. Then sprinkled a layer of freshly shredded fontina cheese on top of the bread. Finally, broil the soup in the oven until the cheese becomes bubbly and golden brown. Then enjoy your homemade soup!

Note: if you don’t have oven-safe soup bowls, the soup can still be enjoyed without the bread and cheese.

This French onion soup recipe was featured in Better Homes & Gardens. Find the article HERE

What to serve with French onion soup

• Any kind of side of cooked vegetables like sauteed garlic asparagus
• since this soup is meatless you can add a side of some meat like panko-crusted salmon or baked lemon chicken
• Any salad of your choice would pair well with this soup. We love to serve it with spinach pomegranate salad, crunchy cucumber cabbage salad, or couscous arugula salad

Full Recipe Instructions

This recipe was originally posted on May 25, 2015, we’ve tweaked it a bit since then.