Onion Soup in a Crock Pot

Like many people, I travelled out of state to have Thanksgiving with family.  Before leaving I realized I had an abundance of organic onions and one leek left in my produce bin, which might have become spoiled by the time I got back.  I have been craving French onion soup for awhile, but was too busy to deal with the constant stirring caramelizing the onions could have required.  Luckily I’ve recently checked out a great slow cooker book from the library called 125 Best Vegetarian Slow Cooker Recipes.  I like it so much I’m adding it to my Christmas wish list. 

Their recipe for onion soup suggests leaving the onions in a slow cooker with butter for one hour, then adding sugar and allowing to them to slow cook in the butter and sugar for another four hours.  This was easy, and not too time-consuming!  As always I’ve modified some ingredients to allow for what I had on hand and my vegetarian diet.  Serves six.  It’s great!

 

Ingredients

 

3 pounds onion *I used a combination of green onion, yellow onion and one leek

2 tablespoons melted butter

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

8 cups of ‘enhanced’ vegetable stock, which is the equivalent of two boxes + extra seasons- see below

1 baguette

2 cups Swiss, Guyere cheese *(I used Parmesan)

Directions

1.  Melt the butter then dump the onions into your crock pot.  Pour the melted butter over the top and stir well to cover all the onions.  Cook on high for one hour.

2.  While your onions are cooking, ‘enhance’ your vegetable stock with two carrots, 1 tablespoon parsley, 1 teaspoon cracked pepper, 1/2 teaspoon thyme, a bay leaf and 1 cup of red wine (or white–whatever you have.)  Simmer this until the carrots are cooked, then remove the carrots and save the liquid for later.

3.  Add your sugar, salt, pepper into the crockpot, then cook on high four more hours, stirring every so often to be sure the onions are browning.

4.  Add vegetable stock and cook on high two more hours.

5.  At serving time, preheat your broiler.  Place a couple baguette slices in each bowl.  Top with cheese and broil until the cheese is melted and bubbly.

 

YUM!

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