6 French Onion Soup Recipes We Love

By Bridget Hallinan
Updated September 19, 2019
French onion soup is about as comforting and comfort food gets—a rich, savory broth packed with caramelized onions and topped with decadent Gruyère cheese and toasty bread. The classic recipe can’t be beat, but we’re also not opposed to switching it up by adding truffled pecorino cheese or bacon for extra flavor, too. (You can even add white beans, à la Gwyneth Paltrow.) We’ve included all of those recipes and more in this roundup—bookmark them for fall, when a hot bowl of soup is the best defense against an autumnal chill.
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French Onion Soup

© BEATRIZ DA COSTA
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Rich, flavorful beef broth, sweet caramelized onions, and a great melting cheese that hardens around the bowl into seductively crispy bits are a must for this classic.

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Caramelized Onion and Bread Soup with Brûléed Blue Cheese

Greg DuPree
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In this vegetarian version of classic French onion soup, blue cheese and oloroso sherry bring new layers of flavor and depth. Notes of toasted nuts and fruit compote in the sherry pair well with caramelized onions, and its briny acidity cuts through the richness of the cheese.

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French (Canadian) Onion Soup

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Hugue Dufour makes a pork broth for his French onion soup using bacon for smokiness and a pig's foot for richness. (Omit the pig's foot for a lighter broth.)

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Truffle-Infused French Onion Soup

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Michael Mina upgrades French onion soup with decadent truffled pecorino cheese.

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French Onion Soup with Whole-Grain Cheese Toast

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For this lighter version of the classic French onion soup, freshly grated Gruyère cheese is melted over whole-grain toast and served on top of the soup.

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French-Onion-Style White Bean Soup

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This soup goes back, as Gwyneth Paltrow writes in My Father's Daughter, to a French restaurant called La Serre in Los Angeles where she used to eat with her father. "I've always loved the idea of French onion soup," Gwyneth says, "without actually liking the soup itself." She cooks the onions slowly with fennel and lots of garlic, makes the soup with vegetable stock and the nontraditional addition white beans, then sets the filled bowls under the broiler topped with a slice of toasted bread and a generous handful of grated cheese.

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By Bridget Hallinan