Easy, Homemade French Onion Soup (2024)

This is a very easy French onion soup recipe, but just because it’s easy, that doesn’t mean it isn’t impressive. This might be one of my most popular recipes on my whole site, so brace yourself. You won’t believe how easy it is to make swoon-worthy, restaurant-quality French onion soup!

But keep in mind, like most French cooking, it’s all about how it’s made and the quality of your ingredients that make it truly spectacular, so just be sure to take the tips and suggestions about ingredients to heart.

Nothing makes a party guest feel more special than a meal made entirely from scratch. I recently threw a pretty Christmas party, and when I told my party guests the beef bone broth in this French onion soup, itself, took 2 whole days to make, they were so impressed.

I let them know that it was as simple as chopping an onion and garlic, adding them to a crockpot with a few pounds of bones, and walking away, and they still were impressed!

Making your own beef broth is really the way to go with this recipe. It’s so simple and SO WORTH IT!

Store-bought broth certainly won’t ruin the recipe, but if you want a rich, full-bodied, complex soup, take a look at my simple recipe for crockpot bone broth to really make this soup special!

How to Make This Recipe – Step by Step

1. Slice 6 pieces of bread about 1 inch thick, and toast them at 250 F. for 15-20 minutes. Grate 1 pound of Gruyere and chop 4 large red onions into chunky pieces.

2. Add 4 tbsp. of butter to a large pot and melt. Add your chopped onions. Cook until soft and slightly browned, about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add 1 tsp. of thyme and sprinkle with fresh pepper. Mix with onions for 1 minute.

3. Pour ⅓cup port wine or sherry into the onions and stir. Allow to reduce and caramelize for 5 minutes.

4. Pour 6 cups of beef broth into the onions. Turn heat to high and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Taste first before adding salt, it may be perfect already. If not, begin with ½ a tsp. of salt and see if it can use a little more. Don’t exceed 1 tsp. Once the bread is done toasting, remove them and raise oven temperature to 450 F.

5. Pour soup into bowls. (It’s a good idea to place them in a tray so you can take them all out at once).

6. Add toasts to each bowl and a nice big sprinkle of cheese. Place carefully in the oven for 10 minutes, or until cheese is crispy around the edges.

7. Remove from oven carefully and serve.

Common Questions

A Few Tips

1. I can’t say it enough, make your own beef broth.

It’s really that important. You can make French onion soup with regular, store-bought beef stock, but on a scale from 1-10, your soup with be, at best, a 5, no matter how it’s seasoned or how special your other ingredients are.

A soup like this needs dimension and thickness. It needs all those dreamy nutrients and that slow-simmered goodness. This recipe, when made with homemade bone broth, is a perfect 10!

2. Don’t go for the cheap stuff. Use a nice sherry or port wine.

By “nice,” I mean talk to the folks in the liquor store about which port is nice to serve after dinner, or which sherry would make a lovely Christmas present. Get that one. Not the $2.29 brand of sherry sold at Target.

Believe me. The goal with this soup is to make the dinner table go silent. One spoon of soup, and everyone sinks into their bowls. A good port or sherry will add that touch of complex sweetness that offsets the savory onion and gruyere.

3. Use day-old bread or simply dry it out in the oven first.

You’ll want to pop a sliced piece of bread in the soup to hold up that delicious melted cheese, and you want it to be quite crouton-like. If it’s soft, or only toasted, it just gets soggy in the soup, but if it’s either a bit stale, or simply baked at 250 F. for about 10-15 minutes, it’ll be perfect.