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Baked French Onion Soup

A baked French onion soup with caramelized onions, beef broth, and melted provolone and Parmesan cheese topping.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 29,030 recipes mention both. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

The recipe

Oven325°F
Time30–40 minutes

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 325°F.

  2. Remove the crusts from the bread.

  3. Bake bread pieces 15–20 minutes or until lightly browned and crisped. Set aside.

Make the soup

  1. Sauté onions in olive oil over medium heat until onions become translucent but not brown.

  2. Add minced garlic cloves to onions during last few minutes, making sure garlic does not brown.

  3. Stir in beef broth and seasonings.

  4. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer 30–40 minutes.

  5. Adjust seasonings to taste, adding salt and pepper as desired.

Bake and serve

  1. Ladle the soup into ovenproof serving bowls.

  2. Cover soup with a slice of bread.

  3. Top with provolone cheese and sprinkle with Parmesan.

  4. Place serving bowls under broiler set on high.

  5. Broil 6–7 minutes or until cheese is bubbly and has some browning.

  6. Serve with additional Parmesan cheese.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + olivetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together23,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Onion + beeftop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Olive + parmesan cheesetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Beef + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Onions
Slowly cooked sugars give the soup its sweetness and deep, savory flavor.
Beef broth
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries its savory flavor.
White bread
Toasted slices float on the soup and soak up broth for a sturdy texture.
Provolone cheese
Melts over the bread and browns under the broiler for a stretchy, golden top.
Parmesan cheese
Adds salty, nutty flavor and helps the topping brown and crisp.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma; cooking it briefly keeps its flavor from turning bitter.

The step that matters

Sautéing the onions. Cooking onions slowly over medium heat without browning them lets their natural sugars develop gently. Browning too quickly can make the soup taste bitter rather than sweet and rich.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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