I continue to be a major advocate for soup because one, it’s soup and who doesn’t like soup? Two, it’s very passive to make and you can clean as you go.

As always, if you dig this recipe, tag me at @draggedthroughthegarden on instagram and we can talk about bread.

French Onion Soup. Or as they call it in France, “Onion Soup.”

FRENCH ONION SOUP

prep time: 15 minutes
cook time: 35 minutes

But for real, do they just call it “onion soup?”

To reiterate, this dish is pretty easy to make and most of the time that goes into it is simmer time. So you can clean up whatever mess you make. This recipe will be split into two halves. The soup itself, and the bread that accompanies.

What you’ll need:

sweet onion
garlic
vegan butter
olive oil
vegan mozz
vegetable broth
red vermouth (or red wine…or balsamic vinegar)
bouillon (optional)
salt
pepper
thyme
bay leaf
oat flour
molasses (optional)

First, dice up a white onion. The whole thing. Try not to cry. After that, peel a bulb of garlic and chop that up too. Get out a big pot and add enough olive oil to coat the bottom.

You vs. the guy she tells you not to worry about. Just kidding, she loves you.

Once your oil is hot, add all of your onion into the pot. Be sure to stir frequently so your onions don’t burn. Add a big chunk of vegan butter into the pot and let it cook together for a few. Once everything starts to brown, add your garlic into the pot. Stir that up so the garlic cooks and your onion doesn’t burn. Drop the flame a little bit now.

Once your garlic/onion/oil/butter mixture is nice and cooked, add a generous splash of red vermouth. You can use red wine if you have a bottle open or balsamic vinegar if you don’t have either of the aforementioned. Have your oat flour ready,.

Don’t use the cheap stuff either, churn out the extra few bucks and get a nice bottle.

Let your vermouth/wine/balsamic cook out for a minute and then sieve a few tablespoons of oat flour directly into the pot. This will thiccen that boy up and leave your soup with some texture after you add your broth.

Once your flour is added, you should have a nice gravy-esque thing going on in your pot. Add salt, pepper and thyme into the pot.

I suppose somehow this could double as a gravy recipe. Writing that down for later.

Next, you are going to add your broth into the pot and turn that gravy into soup. If you have 32oz containers, use two of them. 64 oz of broth will go into this thing. Bring your temperature up so you can bring the broth to a boil. Add more salt, pepper and a couple tablespoons of nutritional yeast.

In a separate dish, add a knob of butter, some olive oil and a generous clump of vegan mozz. Put that into the microwave for 30 seconds to soften it up. You can then add this mixture right into the soup to ensure it mixes smoothly.

Melty stuff ready to be added to the pot.

Add that mixture into the pot and then toss a bay leaf in there and a cube of bouillon. Add a little molasses too if you have some. Give it a good stir and when it starts to boil, put a lid on it and drop the temperature so that thing can simmer out.

While your soup is simmering, preheat your oven to 350°. The second half of this recipe will be the bread and soup toppings.

What you’ll need:

french bread
olive oil
vegan mozz
salt
parsley (or green onion)

Cut your bread into slices and get out a baking sheet. Add some oil to the sheet and lay your slices on there. Add some oil to the top of the bread slices and then add a big clump of vegan mozz onto each one. Add a little bit more olive oil and salt onto each one.

Tip: Using an olive oil spray for this part works wondrously.

Put your bread in the oven for 15 minutes. While your bread cooks, sample the soup and see if it needs any extra loving. Once the fifteen minutes is up, switch the oven over to broil for a couple of minutes. Keep a very close eye on the bread once your oven is broiling to ensure you don’t burn anything.

Pop your bread out of the oven without burning yourself and let them cool down.

Chop down a little bit of parsley or green onion to garnish your soup with. Make sure to wash your parsley if necessary.

Lastly, put your soup into a bowl, throw some of your cheesy bread in there along with a few leaves of parsley. Or green onion. Don’t eat the bay leaf.