I made this soup solely to utilize this hard French bread that I had. Hahaha... so I used a whole bag of onions to essentially save some croutons. Well worth it.

What's the story behind this recipe?

My dad taught me this recipe, yes, it is a bit time consuming, but so worth every minute!!

I am not sure where this recipe came from (it is typewritten on a recipe card that belonged to my mother), but it is one of my youngest daughter's favourites. It has been modified slightly from the original recipe.

also a cool idea is to fry an onion ring instead of bread and melt the cheese on top of it

This was passed to me from my dad's wife. So I just tweaked it a touch to my liking! Great winter soup. So easy to make and freaking awesome!!!!

It’s probably the most loved and popular French recipe worldwide! Watch full recipe video at: https://youtu.be/yWb4ygzX77I

I accidently defrosted a pack of onions so needed to cook something.

I made this recipe to give a dark rich French onion soup base, with an actual short rib per serving. Many recipes online give watery bland soups, with shredded beef that I think defeats the purpose of spending the time braising short ribs. I also think that adding flour to the soup to give it body mutes the flavor and turns it more to a stew or gravy. Instead, I found adding gelatin to give the soup body was a better choice. I also found that using cubed toasted sourdough instead of the traditional cross cut baguette provided a bread with more toothsome chew and fits in the crocks better.