I bought a whole bag of onions for £1 at my local shop and so thought I’d make some onion soup. It’s super simple, the hardest bit is trying not to cry when cutting all those onions.

What you will need:

6 onions (sliced)
3 garlic cloves (crushed)
1 litre of home-made stock (any kind) or stock cube / or make sure it covers all the onions and then a bit more
A glass of red or white wine (optional)
Tablespoon of butter
Slices of toasted baguette
Grated emmenthal or cheddar cheese
Salt and pepper

There are different stages to this soup and those are the key. I have a pressure cooker, it’s found in most French kitchen’s and is a great way to fast cook soups, stews and you can also steam vegetables. If you don’t have a pressure cooker you can use a casserole.

On a medium heat, in the pot add the butter, once hot add to it all the onions and garlic. You need the onions to soften and golden, this will give a lot of the flavour to your soup. Then you can add your stock, wine and salt and pepper. Reduce the heat and leave for 20 minutes if in a pressure cooker or 45 minutes in a casserole.

Whilst you soup is simmering turn your oven on to 180C. Then toast your baguette slices. Once your soup is cooked add at least half your soup in an oven dish, place the toast to cover the entire dish and sprinkle cheese on top (put as much or as little as you wish, I put loads). Place in the oven for 20 minutes. You can put all your soup in the oven dish but as the bread soaks up so much of the liquid I like keeping the other half to add later. So a few minutes before taking the dish out of the oven reheat the remaining of the soup that’s in the pot.

Remove oven dish and serve in a bowl, add to it some of the soup from the pot.

It’s perfect on a cold winter day.

Mel