Make your own French Onion Soup from scratch with a secret ingredient that makes this soup better than any other - ham stock from scratch!
Oh hey, 2015. You came out of nowhere! What a crazy end of the year / beginning of the year it's been! Between the holidays and the New Year, and then all the work catch up from being out of the office for the holidays and new year, it's been pretty crazy. So crazy that even though I did a ton of cooking for our annual Christmas Eve dinner, and for our long ski/snow New Years weekend in Bend, OR (where we cooked most of our meals in our condo with friends instead of going out), I failed on the photo taking end. Luckily though, between Christmas and the New Year I did manage to capture this soup. This amazing amazing amazing French Onion Soup From Scratch. It's a soup that we made an obscene amount of for two people and happily ate it for days and days reveling in it's deliciousness from the 1st bowl on day one to the 4th bowl on day 4. It is that good.
What makes it so good? This bad boy right here. And I have to admit, we are a household that buys and cooks a whole ham just to make this soup. This soup is the best part of a ham. No joke. We've done this twice now, bought a ham when it was on super sale then cooked it when we were ready for French Onion Soup. The ham? Oh yeah that got used to make sandwiches (like the amazing Croque Monsieur ) and quiches (like the Spinach Ham and Cheddar Quiche), but those are all afterthoughts. The focus of this ham is totally, hands down, no questions asked, this soup.
Why? Because of that deliciousness right there.
And the ham bone. Once we stripped the ham and put away all of the meat, I added water to the ham grease and bone in my beautiful new Le Crueset Dutch Oven! It was an amazing surprise Christmas present from my studly husband even though we had said no gifts because we'd bought ourselves a brand new amazing mattress for Christmas. He's so sneaky.
So after we added the water, we let this simmer for quite a few hours on medium low to make the most wonderful, rich, and flavorful ham stock.
The next day we finished making the soup. And because we had about 3 quarts of stock, I sliced up 8 onions. 5 large white and 3 smaller sweeter yellow onions. Proper onion to broth ratio for this soup is also key. That ratio: the more onions the better!
Into the dutch oven with a couple of tablespoons of butter.
And then we realized we're idiots and that filling the dutch oven to the brim with onions would never let them all cook nice and slowly like they needed to. So we separated them out into two pans. This big saute pan,
and the dutch oven. This allowed for the proper slow simmering of the onions. Slow being the operative word.
The key for the onions are sautéing them over low / med low heat, stirring regularly ensuring no burning (you don't want the usual quick browning) of the onions. Any burnt onions would throw the flavor of the soup way off. Ideally, perfectly caramelized onions (like the ones that take at least an hour), would provide a richer color to the soup, but to err on the side of caution, we just slowly sautéed the onions.
Meanwhile, I took a couple of loaves of Dan's Como Bread out of the oven. Mmm fresh bread.
And our cheese of choice was a lovely gruyère. We've made French Onion soup from scratch before with our homemade mozzarella, but it's just not melty enough. My cheese just doesn't produce that same ooey gooey melty cheesiness that's needed for this soup.
Once the onions were nice and soft and tender, we added them all back into the dutch oven with the ham stock to heat up on medium.
When it all heated back up, we turned our oven to broil, ladled in the onions and broth, and my adorable husband sliced a few pieces of the fresh como bread to fit our new little soup crocks. My mother in law is the beesstt. When she came to visit in September, one of our many cooking conversations were about how we love the French Onion soup recipe (it's hers) and that we've made it but we didn't have any proper soup crocks for it. Then these arrived in the mail for Christmas. And not just a couple of them, eight of them. Because she knows we like to entertain. Ahh I love her.
On top of the bread we added a healthy dose of the shredded gruyère,
Under the broiler for a couple of minutes until all the cheese was melted and out came this French Onion Soup From Scratch- the best soup I have and probably ever will eat. 
It's just sooo incredibly flavorful. The ham broth truly makes this soup. That, with all of the onions and the homemade bread and the melted nutty gruyère,
I'm obsessed with this French Onion Soup From Scratch. I have yet to find another that's as delicious and I'm sure it's because of that ham stock! This is a seasonal classic in our household now, for sure!
Ingredients
- 3 quarts of ham stock This is the key to the soup. Homemade is best!
- 5 lg. white onions sliced
- 3 sm. yellow onions sliced
- 2 cloves of garlic minced
- 3 tablespoons of butter
- Fresh bread slices
- Shredded Gruyère cheese
- 1/2 - 1 tablespoon of salt pending how salt rich your stock is
- Fresh ground pepper to taste
Instructions
- To make homemade ham stock, add ham bone to ham grease from cooked ham (optional), and simmer on medium low with 4 -5 quarts of water until stock is rich and flavorful. 2-4 hours.
- Saute sliced onions with garlic and butter slowly on medium / low heat, stirring constantly. Be sure that the onions do not burn!
- Add sautéed onions to a large dutch oven or pot with ham stock and heat on medium until stock is hot. Add salt and pepper.
- Turn oven to broil and bring tray to top, leaving enough room for soup crock.
- Fill soup crocks with onions and broth, add fresh sliced bread, top with cheese. Put crocks on baking sheet (to catch any dripped cheese) and broil for 1-2 minutes until the cheese is melted and slightly brown.
- Yields about 4 quarts of broth with onions. Plenty for leftovers or to be frozen for later use!
I have the same bean crocks! I cannot wait until the weather cools down a bit so I can indulge in soup and this one looks like perfection!
They're great, aren't they?? They're a gift from my MIL when she heard we were making her soup but didn't have the proper crocks 😉
Reblogged this on Crash Course.
This looks soooo… good! My mouth is watering! I love French onion soup and this recipe looks great - i am definitely going to pin this! thank you! 🙂
I would love to try to make this, but I'm pretty sure cutting all those onions would make me cry out my soul... if it's still hanging around 😉
Ham broth for French onion soup! You are a genius!
Love onion soup - interesting that you use ham stock in your soup - I am sure it is good 🙂
My husband nags at me to make this - maybe now I will finally give it a go! Thanks for sharing
This is the first French onion soup I have seen using ham, but it does make perfect sense. Will have to try it for one of our winter meals. Thanks for sharing your mother's in law beautiful recipe.
Just thinking about this soup yesterday. I am going to have to try your recipe some time soon!
I like french onion soup but my dad goes crazy for it. We'll have to make this the next time a visit him. I've never heard of using ham broth in french onion soup either but I bet it lends an awesome salty smokey flavor vs. beef stock and wine. Do you think a butch would be willing to sell a ham bone only?
I love French onion soup. This looks so good!!
I've been meaning to make French Onion Soup. You just kicked me in the butt to get it done. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you, Heidi for visiting! 😀
this post really did me in. First the ham broth. We use hambone for pea soup but I have never ever heard of using it for onion soup. That is flat out genius. Ham and cheese sandwich = classic; ham broth + cheese in soup = new classic! Then the damn Como bread! I wish I could be over at your place right now! Fabulous.
Haha, I love this, Sue! I wish I could take credit, it's all my mother in law- she's one smart cookie who can make a mean cookie! I wish I could care package this soup to everyone I know because it's so good I just want to share it with everyone! 😀
I absolutely love French Onion Soup–yours looks so good!
Thanks, Nancy!
My favorite soup! This looks delicious!
This looks delicious. Anything to warm the bones is on my favorite list!
I agree!! I prefer the term "Soup Season" over "Winter" 😉
That does have a better ring to it.
I love onion soup! Unfortunately I am alone in this, so I'll have to drool over your pictures ...
Looks like you'll just have to make your own personal batch! 😉
I imagine so 😉
DAAAHHH French onion soup is my FAV-FAV-FAVORITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! With that yummy cheese... omg.. I'm eating a lean cuisine as I'm looking at this and that's just not fair. Poor choice Steph, poor choice.