Classic French Onion Soup

French onion soup, those little pots of slow-simmered onions and bubbling cheese, warms our bellies on cold autumn days.  While I’ll always have a place on my table, in my belly and in my heart for other favorite cold weather soups like curried lentil soup, egg drop soup with duck and slowcooker chicken soup, there’s something special about this French Onion Soup recipe.

I make it frequently in winter – combining the mountains of onions we purchase in bulk each autumn from regional farms with homemade beef stock (though, if I’m lucky enough to have it, I prefer using pasture-raised veal stock).  I float a thin slice of day-old no-knead sourdough bread in the fragrant soup, top it with a smattering of Gruyere cheese, bake it and serve it with another winter staple: homemade sauerkraut.

Broth: the Base of a Good French Onion Soup

If you’ve read Nourished Kitchen for any length of time, you know how deeply I value real, homemade broths, bone broths and stocks.  My husband and I typically consume about a quart (each) a day, in soups and stews, in gravies and pan sauces, and on its own with a sprinkling of chopped garlic and minced parsley.  And it’s this love of the simple beauty of broth that leads me to emphasize soups in my cooking – whether it’s French Onion Soup or another.

Long-simmered broths made of meat scraps, bones, skin and cartilage play a role in culinary traditions around the globe where they were valued for their nutritive and restorative properties.  Soups made from long-simmered bones, vegetables and a bit of cut-up bone marrow or meat, featured prominently in the daily meals of the Swiss villagers of the Loetschental Valley, while African villagers emphasized bone broths in the nourishment of mothers, babies and small children (you can read more about these practices in Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Dr. Weston Price).

Extraordinarily rich in minerals and easy-to-assimilate proteins, broths and stocks do much more than provide a base for soups, stews and sauces; rather, they support systemic wellness in a way few other foods hope to achieve.  Rich in collagen, they support skin health and digestive system function.  Rich in minerals, they provide an alternative source of calcium for those who avoid dairy by necessity or choice; further, the calcium in broth is more bioavailable than that of leafy greens whose calcium is often bound by oxalic acid.  (Read more about the benefits of bone broth).

How to Make (or Where to Buy) Bone Broths

Bone broths, broths and stocks are easy enough to make at home.  In its simplest form, a good bone broth can be nothing more than bones simmered in clean water for a long time.  Vegetable scraps, herbs and spices add flavor, while  vinegar or wine can help to leach minerals from the bone and into the broth.  While meat broths and traditional stocks can take a few hours to make, bone broth can simmer for days or, in the case of perpetual stock – even a week or longer as you dip in and out of the slow cooker.

For those of you that haven’t the time, interest or desire to make your own long-simmered bone broths, you can order real bone broth online (see sources) as there’s a smattering of artisan producers who have just recently made their broths available for retail sale.  It’s a long sight better than store bought bouillons and canned broths, but you’ll spend a lot more than you would by making it at home.