The Perfect French Onion Soup (2024)

Oh, hello there!

Remember me? The girl who used to cook, write, and photograph for this blog every week?

I won’t hold it against you if you forgot I existed…since I HAVEN’T POSTED IN FIVE YEARS. Okay, well it’s been twelve days, not five years. But twelve days?!? That’s a long time. That’s almost two weeks of not posting! I apologize…I don’t even have a good excuse. I do have an excuse, just not a good one.

Remember when I went to Iowa to visit family last weekend? It seemed to slip my mind thatthetrip meant I wouldn’t be at home on Saturday or Sunday, meaning I wouldn’t be able to cook or photograph for the blog.

So why not just do it during the week? My thoughts exactly. I also forgot, however, that daylight savings just happened, and it gets dark at like 5:30. Not kidding. It is DARK at 5:30 here.

Side note….WHY DOES IT GET DARK AT 5:30?!?!? It makes me feel like my day is over so early…I don’t like it.

Aaaaanyway, by the time I got home from work every day, it was too dark to photograph food. SO: long story short. I was dumb and forgot to plan ahead with recipes the weekend before my Iowa trip, so I had zero recipes to post this week.

So I’m not dead, if any of you were concerned. I just did not plan ahead. Whoops.

BUT…I have three de-li-cious recipes for you this week. Starting with this perfect, heavenly, flavorful, simple, meal-I-could-eat-every-day soup.

But first! I must update you on my tragic day today…I just must.

So I have been keeping you up to speedon the situation with our dog, Boone (he’s had a broken toe for a few months). I mentioned here that the vet told us he needed surgery since it wasn’t healing at all. So many updates since then. So…many…updates.

1. They gave us two surgical options. Option A = amputate his toe. Sounds SO SCARY AND EXTREME. Two week recovery time in which he can’t leave his crate. Semi expensive but not unreasonable. Option B = insert plates and screws in his toe. Sounds less scary and extreme. SIX WEEK RECOVERY TIME in which he can’t leave his crate. Extremely expensive. Literally more than five times the price of the amputation. After talking about it a lot with Seth and our vet, we decided to go with the amputation.
2. Fast forward a few days…Boone got the amputation surgery. This was on Friday (this past Friday). So since Friday, he has been in his crate with a huge cone on his head and a bulky bandage on his foot. Poor baby…
3. Fast forward to this morning…aka the WORST MORNING OF MY LIFE. I wake up, look over, and see that sometime in the night, Boone figured out a way around his cone and chewed through his bandage and into his wound. It was bad…really, really bad. I was freaking out and was basically inside his crate with him, trying to gently take his bandage off (I was supposed to take it off today anyway), and just failing miserably. I had to leave for work in the next twenty minutes. They gave me this little baggie to put over his foot when he went outside so his bandage wouldn’tget dirty, so I was trying to put that on his footso there would be some barrier between his wound and the outside world (aka – crate, blankets, MOUTH).
4. I didthe best I couldin the small amount of time I had and headed to work. Hindsight, I should have called my schooland said I was going to be late and taken him to the vet. I was just in shock and not thinking clearly. Keep in mind that I was basically having a meltdown while all this was happening. It’s hard to explain how traumatic and shocking his foot looked unless you were there. And of course…all this happens three weeks after Seth leaves and I don’t have him there to help me.
5. I get to work, call the vet, and they basically tell me that it’s bad and I need to get him in as soon as I possibly can. They freaked me out more by how worried they sounded. They were afraid he chewed through his sutures and that they were going to have to remove more of his toe. So I left work a few hours early (thank God for my awesome principal), rushed home, and took Boone to the vet so they could fix this mess.
6. I got a call a few hours later saying that he didn’t chew through his stitches….WHEW. It was getting infected though and looked pretty bad, so they cleaned it really well, dried it out, re-bandaged it, and started him on a second type of antibiotics.
7. So we decided that we were going to leave him at the vet to be boarded instead of at my house…I’m just not home enough during the day to monitor him, and if he chews through is bandage again he will already be at the vet and they can fix it right away. I am going to miss him like CRAZY for these next ten days until his stitches are removed and he can come home, but it’s really the best option right now.

Whew. And that’s my story.

I really just can’t explain in words how horrible it was. I was frantic. Freaking out. Having a melt down. I was a mess all day, constantly thinking about Boone being back here in pain with an open, sore wound. I feel much better now that he is cleaned up, re-bandaged, and around doctors who can be monitoring him all day and night so this doesn’t happen again.

Ugh.

UGH.

Okay I need to talk about something else now and stop revisiting my horrendous day. This soup is the perfect distraction!! This soup…this soup, this soup, this souuuppp.

It is so perfectly delicious. If you are a fan of French Onion Soup slash FOOD IN GENERAL, you must make this.

The secret? Legit caramelizing the onions. I’m not talkin’ about a quick fifteen minute brown. I’m talkin’ forty-five minutes of delicious, caramelizing goodness. You have to do it right! Since French Onion Soup is essentially just caramelized onions and beef broth, you really need to treat your onions the way they need to be treated.

It takes about forty-five minutes to make good caramelized onions…but don’t worry…it’s worth it ?. I promise.

So…your super simple, basic steps:

Caaaaaramelize the onions. CARAMELIZE THEM!!

Oh yeah…

Add the beef broth and simmer for about fifteen minutes. Ladle some of that heavenly soup into bowls.

Add some toasted bread.

Add some Gruyere cheese……..can’t say enough about how delicious this step is.

And broil for a few minutes until the cheese is gooey and melty and perfect.

That’s all their is to it! I’m telling you…the combination between the soup, the bread, and the cheese…you will die and go to food heaven. Nothing beats a perfect French Onion Soup…nothing.

I hope you had an awesome Monday!

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If you make this or any of my other recipes, be sure to Instagram it and hashtag #thegarlicdiaries!

In the mood for more yummy, comforting soup recipes? Check these out:

30 Minute Stuffed Pepper Soup

Easy Chicken Pot Pie Soup

Crock-Pot Lasagna Soup