Barney’s easy & cosy French onion soup

What’s for dinner tonight?

We’re cosying up with a bowl of Barney’s next level French onion soup, complete with a bubbling cheesy baguette topping.

Give it a go with the full recipe below 👇

Next level French onion soup

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

75g butter
2kg onions, halved and sliced as thinly as possible
Bunch of thyme and 3 bay leaves tied together
1 tsp yeast extract – optional
1 tbsp plain flour
100ml white wine
1ltr fresh beef stock
2 tbsp olive oil
Half a stale baguette, sliced
Half garlic clove
150g finely grated Gruyere cheese

1 Heat the butter in a shallow casserole dish until melted and sizzling. Pile in the onions and season generously with salt then stir well until the onions are coated in the butter and are sizzling gently. Nestle the herbs into the onions and cook everything over a medium heat for about 30-40 mins. At first the onions will release lots of liquid, but you want to bubble that down and after about 20 mins they will start to caramelise – this is when you need to keep an eye on them and keep stirring and scraping up any sticky bits off the pan with a wooden spoon back into the onions.

2 When the onions have cooked down and are sticky and brown stir through the yeast extract if using then scatter over and stir through the flour. Cook the flour out for 3-4 mins then splash in the white wine, bubble down for another 3-4 mins then stir in the stock. Simmer everything gently for 20 mins until you have a glossy onion soup.

3 While the soup is simmering heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Drizzle half the oil over a baking tray, line the slices of baguette up over the tray then rub each one with the cut side of the garlic. Scatter over about a third of the cheese and bake in the oven for 8-10 mins until golden. Remove from the oven. The soup and the croutes can be made the day before and left to cool.

4 To serve and turn the oven up to max. Off the heat arrange the croutes over the top of the soup and scatter over the rest of the cheese. Bake the soup for 10 mins until the cheese has melted and the soup is bubbling around the edges. Bring to the table and serve spooned straight from the dish.