Easy Cheesy French Onion Soup

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French Onion Soup is delicious and so easy to make! 

I can eat soup all year long, even in the middle of a hot South Carolina summer. To me, there’s nothing better than soup and a sandwich.

There was a time when I only ate French Onion Soup when I was dining out. When I realized how easy it is to make, Easy Cheesy French Onion Soup became a staple in my house. My version tastes so much better than any I’ve ever had in restaurants.

The first step in making french onion soup is to caramelize the onions. Caramelized onions are simply onions that have been cooked slowly.

The natural sugars are caramelized as the onions cook. It’s all about low and slow when it comes to caramelizing onions. It takes about 35 minutes to caramelize the onions for Easy Cheesy French Onion Soup.

I’m a cheese lover and Gruyere is one of my favorites. I don’t scrimp on the cheese when I’m making this soup. I also use sweet marsala wine in this recipe. You can also use red wine. I just happen to have marsala on hand because of my husband’s love for my chicken marsala.

Ingredients You’ll Need To make French Onion Soup

• olive oil
• butter
• 4 large onions, sliced (I use Vidalia sweet onions when they are available)
• thyme
• minced garlic
• salt and pepper 
• sweet marsala wine OR red wine
• beef broth
• French baguette slices
• grated gruyere cheese
• Parmesan cheese

How To Make Cheesy French Onion Soup

Slice the onions. Add the olive oil to a heavy pot and turn the heat to medium. Add the sliced onions, thyme, salt, pepper, and minced garlic.

Cook on medium heat, stirring often until the onions are golden brown, about 35 minutes.

Pour in the marsala wine and deglaze the pan, stirring to scrape up all the good bits of onion. Deglazing is a fancy word that simply means pouring a cool liquid into a hot pan to get all the browned bits stuck to the bottom of the pan. Those browned bits are full of flavor and you don’t want them to stay stuck to the pan.

Add the beef broth and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove the thyme stems.

Preheat the broiler on high and ladle soup into four ovenproof bowls. Place baguette slices on a baking sheet and broil until golden brown, about 2 minutes. I usually add two baguette slices to each bowl of soup.

Place toasted baguette slices on the bowls of soup. Add the Gruyere cheese and sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Place the bowls on a baking sheet and broil for 1-2 minutes or until cheese is melted. Watch carefully to prevent burning.

If you don’t have ovenproof bowls, add the cheese on top of the baguette slices before broiling for 2-3 minutes. Carefully, place slices of the cheesy bread on top of each bowl of soup.

I think I could eat this soup every day – well, at least twice a week. It’s so good!

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Originally published in August 2018 and updated on August 14, 2021.