Crock Pot French Onion Soup I Made It Ii

Crock Pot French Onion Soup

chuckieb 3 years ago
On the whole I'm not a huge fan of Crock pot meals. For the most part I feel that if you cook meat in one it usually tastes stewed, so I tried to find a recipe for this month's IMI11 Crock Pot Challenge that would avoid that.

Came across Tina's Crock Pot French Onion soup recipe.
Crock Pot Onion Soup
I'd bookmarked it 9 years ago! LOL! Tina was an amazing cook and boy I wish she was still here to tell me where I might have gone wrong, but it all worked out in the end, so perhaps she was watching over me after all. :)

The recipe serves 12 so I halved it. Tina says that the recipe makes a Concentrated soup, one that she jars up and then gifts to people so that they only have to add a cup of water to it before they eat. She didn't say what size jars she used. In the end, the batch I made was enough soup to serve 8 people a good sized portion. (A French Onion soup bowl full) :)

The recipe says to fill a crock pot with sliced onions and cook for four hours on low. I used about 2 1/2 lbs. of onions. I used vermouth but if I'd have had brandy on hand I would have chosen that as I think it would have given it a bit deeper flavour.

After four hours I looked at the onions but to me they weren't nearly cooked enough.*(First picture) I like my onions for French Onion soup to be somewhat caramelized. If I were to make the recipe again, I'd try cooking the onions on high for four hours but I'm still doubting that they'd be as cooked as I'd like. So....I dumped them out in to a fry pan and sauteed them for a bit. *(Second picture) This yielded a much better result plus you get the added benefit of that browned bit goodness stuck to the pan that you can deglaze and add to the broth and it not only adds a ton of extra flavour but also depth of colour.

I transferred the sauteed onions back to the crock pot and added the 3/4 cup of shredded parmesan cheese. Thought initially that was a brilliant idea that would really add to the flavour but it ended up being a bit of a disaster. I let everything continue to cook on low for another 3-4 hours and it did smell wonderful.

When I turned the crock pot off the onions had absorbed the majority of the chicken and beef broth. I set it in my fridge for a couple of days as I'd run out of beef broth (I wanted to use beef broth and not just water to add to the concentrate) and had to run out and buy some.

Today when I went to divvy up the onion soup mixture from the crock in to four 1 L jars I found what felt like a fibrous rubbery mat at the bottom. THE SHREDDED PARMESAN CHEESE! *(Third picture). Luckily I was able to scoop out the broth and the onions and separate the cheese to a dish and then threw it in the garbage. What a mess and what a waste of Parmesan cheese.

I bought two boxes of Campbell's Beef Broth (900 ml). I used both boxes and filled the jars (which were already filled to about 1/3 with the onion mixture) up to the top with the beef broth. I froze three and Hubby and I heated up one jar for lunch today. The flavour is very nice. The onions are now nicely cooked.

It makes a lot. I'd never make this recipe again as it seemed to take me forever and as I said I don't think the crock pot did a good enough job cooking the onions. Add to that the fiasco with the parmesan cheese and this recipe and I just didn't see eye to eye. :) Thanks for the recipe Tina. It was fun to try. Miss ya girlfriend.

I put two photos on Tina's recipe page. One of the soup in a pan warming and one all ready to serve in a french onion soup bowl.
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LindaLMT 3 years ago said:

Good information Janet and seems like a lot of work for a crock pot recipe which usually makes work easier. I love French onion soup but don't make it because it is a lot of time spent caramelizing the onions. Great pictures to note the various stages of cooking.

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Cosmicmother 3 years ago said:

I've heard of Caramelizing onions in the crock-pot but never tried it! I think they have to cook on low overnight or around 10hrs though? Too bad the cheese coagulated at the bottom of the soup, yikes! The final soup in the bowl, with bread and cheese, looks delicious though! :)

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Good4U 3 years ago said:

I find different Crockpots have different temperatures. The older ones seem to have a higher temperature than the newer ones. Lol, I have never had luck with cooking anything at a low temperature. Only perhaps keeping something warm like gravy. I think it should have read on high instead of low though. Perhaps a typo? Yes, Tina was an extraordinary cook. I have only made French Onion soup on the stove myself and I do caramelize the onions first in a frying pan. Bravo to you for persevering to get an end result, Janet.

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eastcoaster 3 years ago said:

Great photos, i have made onion soup many times years ago, but not in a crock pot.
Interesting recipe and i'm glad it worked out in the end.

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chuckieb 3 years ago said:

Thanks Everyone! :)

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