Skip to main content

French Onion Soup Recipe

My favorite comfort food, though it takes a bit of work. This dish can easily become a main course due to its richness and the addition of the cheesy crouton...

By chow · From Open Recipes · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 17,091 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

The recipe

8 servings

Ingredients

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

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By chow. Recipe from Open Recipes.

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

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

  2. Thyme + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Red wine + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together749 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  5. Red wine + beeftop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,017 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, sugar, flour, red wine, beef, pepper):

  1. Thymethe original
  2. Garlicabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Cinnamonabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Rosemaryabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, sugar, flour, red wine, beef, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).