Laura the Gastronaut > Julia Child > Soup > Onion Soup

French Onion Soup

January 4, 2020 | Updated September 1, 2023 | Laura

✽ Recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. I | Julia Child ✽

Julia Child Recipes 84-85 | 476 recipes to go!

✽ Soupe à l'Oignon [Onion Soup], p. 43
✽ Croûtes [Hard-toasted French Bread], p. 44
✽ Croûtes au Fromage [Cheese Croûtes], p. 44

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✽ Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. I was written by Julia Child who co-authored with Simone Beck & Louisette Bertholle and was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1961.

✽ You can buy Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I which contains these recipes here. (affiliate link)

The purpose of this Julia Child section of my blog is to document my journey of learning how to cook. To show my successes, my failures, and what I learned along the way.

Since I didn't create these recipes (if only!), I do not post exact amounts of ingredients or word-for-word instructions. If any of these recipes spark your interest, I highly recommend you buy Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking (affiliate link). It's a great investment and learning tool and contains hundreds of classic recipes.

I hope that you enjoy reading my thoughts, learn something new, and leave inspired to try a new recipe. Bon appétit!

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✽ Butter Count: +3 TB

✽ Cost: $7.02 [~$1.00 per serving]

Check out the total Julia Child butter count & cost here!

→ Looking for a different Julia Child recipe? Here's a list of all of the completed and pending Mastering the Art of French Cooking recipes!

I’ve been excited about this recipe since I started this project. I love love LOVE French Onion Soup. As I have never actually made homemade onion soup before, I have enjoyed it many times at Jason’s Deli. And it was such a heartbreaking day when I walked up to the cashier at Jason’s about a year ago and was told they no longer had French Onion Soup. Jason’s was the only place I knew that served onion soup so my world was flipped upside down.

But alas, I now know how to make it at home. How to make a very, very good version of it at home, I might add. Still, if you know of a good place to get French Onion Soup, let me know!

Looking for more Julia Child soup recipes to read about?

→ Check out all of the soup recipes that I've completed so far!

✽ Step 1: Slowly Cook Onions

Look at all those onions! 1 ½ pounds of onions to be exact. This was such a fun soup to make but a time-consuming one. Julia says to plan for AT LEAST 2 ½ hours from start to finish because the onions need to be cooked long and slow.

First, onions are placed into Dutch oven with butter/oil for 15 minutes. Enjoy this smell. Your whole house will smell like a small café in France (or at least I imagine that’s how French cafés smell).

✽ Step 2: Continue Cooking Onions

Next, you will add some salt and a bit of sugar. Sugar will help the onions brown. They will then be cooked for another 30-40 minutes until they become a beautiful deep golden brown. Heart eyes for days at those beautiful golden onions.

✽ Steps 3-4: Add Flour & Boiling Liquid

The flour is added for thickening purposes and then the boiling beef bouillon and dry white wine is added. The soup is cooked for another 30-40 minutes.

✽ Step 5: Add Cognac

Finally, the best part- cognac is stirred in.

✽ Step 6: Serve

I followed the recipe exactly which means I did not actually put the soup, bread, and cheese into the oven. The book simply suggest placing the bread at the bottom of a tureen, pouring the soup over the bread, and topping with Swiss cheese.

How to Make Cheese Croutons

The bread (croûtes) was simple to make. I put the French bread on a baking sheet and browned/dried in a 325-degree oven for about 30 minutes. Halfway through, each side got a little bit of olive oil and rubbed with cut garlic. Delicious!

With our leftover soup, I made the cheese croutes to knock out another recipe. It only required one extra step. After the croutes are done, they are topped with grated Swiss cheese and drops of olive oil and browned under a hot broiler. As before, they were placed at the bottom of the bowl and the soup was poured on top.

I’m excited to make the next French Onion Soup variation where I get to place the bowls in the oven after cooking (how I picture French Onion Soup).

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Edit: These pictures are.. not great. I apologize. When making these early recipes I was working in an extremely tiny kitchen that had pratically zero counter space and very poor lighting. My only saving grace was that somebody once had one of those pull-out cutting boards installed. What a life saver.

I was also in pharmacy school, getting minimal sleep, working for free, completely broke, didn't know the first thing about taking photos, and knew practically nothing about French cooking (or cooking in general for that matter).

I've debated taking these old posts down but decided to keep them up because they are all a part of my journey. These photos and my written struggles remind me how far I've come. I can pretty much make some of these base recipes in my sleep now!

You don't need fancy equipment or the finest ingredients to enjoy cooking and make good food. As one of my favorite cartoon characters, Ms. Frizzle, says, "Take chances, make mistakes, get messy!"

*This blog, Laura the Gastronaut, and this post were/are not endorsed or supported by Julia Child or The Julia Child Foundation.

Category: Julia Child, Soup Cuisine: French
Keywords: julia child french onion soup, julia child soup recipes, homemade french onion soup

✽ Did you make this recipe too?
→ Let me know by leaving a comment below and sharing on Instagram. Tag @laurathegastronaut and hashtag it #laurathegastronaut.

More Soup Recipes:

✽ Onion Soup Gratineed with Cheese (delicious onion soup topped with crusty cheese bread)
✽ Onion Soup Gratineed de Luxe (onion soup with an egg yolk addition)
✽ Soupe au Pistou (a popular vegetable soup)
→ Check out all of the completed Julia Child soup recipes!

✽ You can find this recipe and all the other Julia Child recipes I make in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I (affiliate link). Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. I was written by Julia Child who co-authored with Simone Beck & Louisette Bertholle and was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1961.

✽ Check out my Julia Child Recipe Checklist to see a list of all my completed and pending recipes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking!

Bon appétit!

January 4, 2020 by Laura Ehlers

*This Onion Soup blog post may contain Amazon affiliate links. These link to products that I personally use and recommend. If you purchase anything using my links, it will not cost you anything. It will though give laurathegastronaut.com some financial support which helps me keep this blog running. Thank you for reading my blogs and your continued support.