Tuesday, July 3, 2012

French food, take one.



Lots of people who go vegetarian are sad to give up their former favorite foods in order to achieve a healthier lifestyle, have less impact on the planet, or be kinder to animals.  Thought french onion soup had to be made with beef broth?  Nope.  I got the idea for this from my friends who let me try some of their soup at a french restaurant we went to a few weeks ago.  Their soup was so, so good and they suggested a vegetarian version would be easy.


They were right! Making vegetarian french onion soup couldn't be easier.  Or tastier. I have plenty of onions growing in my garden that need to be eaten.  Right. Now.


If you, too, have half a dozen or more onions, I highly recommend this recipe or one like it:


Vegetarian French Onion Soup


For the "beef broth" I recommend this:  Better Than Bullion No Beef Base.  One jar lasts possibly forever.  It usually takes me 6 months or more to use the 9 quarts or so of broth one of these jars makes.  I didn't add as much wine as they list in the recipe, but I don't recommend leaving it out entirely, considering we are using a pre-packaged (though very quality) base for the soup.


The oniony soup portion stores very well in the refrigerator. Adding a slice of toast and a combination of cheese slices and then broiling it makes an extremely tasty lunch or dinner that you can whip up pretty quickly after the initial work is done.


As far as being healthful, this recipe does use a lot of butter and cheese.  I love it and it's pretty great for helping to use up onions, leftover wine and bread; however I'm going to leave this one for the occasional dinner because of all that saturated fat!

1 comment:

  1. I love Vegetarian French Onion Soup compared to the beefy broth version. I always find the beef broth overshadows the onions.

    Here's a recipe that I'm intrigued to try, According to him the soup was originally a peasant food and was not even made with broth, just water.
    http://ruhlman.com/2011/10/french-onion-soup-recipe/

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