Skip to main content
Main

Onion Soup

A creamy onion soup made with butter, onions, water, milk, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Onion Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Slice the onions.

  2. Cook the sliced onions in 2 tablespoons of butter until softened.

  3. Add the water.

  4. Cook for 20 minutes.

Make the roux

  1. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a separate pan.

  2. Add the flour to the melted butter.

Combine and finish

  1. Add the cooked onions to the pan.

  2. Add the seasoning.

  3. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

  4. Add the onion mixture to the scalded milk.

  5. Cook until blended.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Provide the main flavor and sweetness as they soften and turn golden during cooking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor while the onions soften.
Flour
Thickens the mixture with the butter, giving the soup body.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the soup and adds richness.

The step that matters

Adding the onion mixture to the scalded milk. Flour-thickened liquids can lump if added too quickly or without steady stirring. Adding the mixture gradually while stirring helps it blend smoothly as it thickens.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, flour, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, flour, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

More onion soup recipes

French 31Brown 15with Milk 7White 5Bavarian 4Bermuda 4 See all 236 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes