Recipe: Sweet Onion Soup With Baked Croutons

Onion soup, with its classically simple roots, is an easy one to turn into something fancy. This recipe is a great example. Caramelized sweet onions, some good crusty bread, and melty Gruyere cheese are all you need for a classic but classy bowl of delicious soup!

Sweet Onion Soup With Baked Croutons
(Make 4 servings.)

Ingredients:

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

4 pieces crusty bread (like French bread) cut into small cubes
1 tsp olive oil or good cooking oil spray
2 Tbsp butter
3 large sweet onions (like Vidalia or Walla Walla)
6 cups rich chicken stock
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 cup grated Gruyere cheese (or aged Gouda, etc.)
fresh chives, chopped, for garnish

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put the bread cubes on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil or spray with cooking oil and stir around with your hands. Put in oven and bake for 8 to 10 minutes, turning once, until golden brown; remove and set aside.
• Put the butter in a large soup pot over medium-low heat, add the onions, and cook, stirring often, until transparent, soft, and golden brown (about 20 minutes).
• Add to the pot the chicken stock, salt and pepper; and bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, and simmer gently for 10 minutes.
• To serve, ladle soup into warmed bowls, add the baked bread cubes on top of each serving, the sprinkle the cheese on top, and add a few chives. Serve hot.

Recipe: Roasted Cauliflower & Herbed Goat Cheese Soup

This easy twist will take a classic cauliflower cheese soup to a whole new level! With just a few simple ingredients, you can elevate these humble soup beginnings into something fancy enough to grace the table at the most elegant soiree. Roasting the cauliflower brings out the natural sweet and nutty flavors of the vegetable, while the creamy goat cheese adds richness and a touch of acidity to balance it out.

Roasted Cauliflower & Herbed Goat Cheese Soup
(Serves 4-6.)

Ingredients:

1 large head cauliflower, cut into florets
1 Tbsp olive oil
kosher salt and black pepper to taste
1 small sweet onion, diced
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, grated
4 cups vegetable or chicken broth
1 cup of crumbled herbed goat cheese

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees and get out large baking sheet.
• Put cauliflower on baking sheet, drizzle on 1 Tbsp olive oil, then sprinkle generously with salt and pepper and spread around with your hands. Bake in preheated oven at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, using a spatula several times during cooking times to turn cauliflower pieces over; remove when fork tender and set aside.
• In a large soup pot, add the onion with a Tbsp of olive oil, put over medium-low heat and cook until the onion softens, then add the garlic and cook 1 minute longer.
• Add the roasted cauliflower into the pot, scraping all the oils off the baking sheet along with the cauliflower.
• Continue cooking over medium-low heat for about 2 minutes, stirring the cauliflower into the onion mixture.
• Stir in the vegetable broth, turn heat up and bring to a boil; reduce heat to low, loosely cover pot and simmer for 15 minutes.
• Remove pot from heat and let cool slightly.
• Ladle soup into a blender and puree until smooth, then return to pot over low heat.
• Slowly stir in the goat cheese, continuing to stir until cheese completely melts.
• Taste and add salt and pepper as needed. Serve hot.

Simple Soup Twists That Turn Classic Into Classy

We all enjoy a good classic soup recipe, right? It's so comforting to dig into a favorite soup with all the ingredients we know and have grown to love. But, sometimes it would be nice to kick up these classics and make them a little classier. Perhaps you'd like to serve soup as a starter for a special dinner, and that soup needs to stand out a bit. Or maybe the soup is the star of the meal and needs to really shine.

Let's take a look at a few classic soup recipes and see what you can do to turn up the class.

Tomato Soup

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This basic soup is well know on lunch menus everywhere. It's an easy soup to make and very comforting, especially when served with a grilled cheese sandwich, right? What if you took those flavors and combined them into one glorious, cheesy soup? Start by roasting the diced tomatoes to bring out the garden fresh sweet flavor, adding onion and garlic to the roasting pan if you wish. Then, once the tomatoes are roasted, pour into a soup pot along with the broth, and simmer slowly. Want more magic? Create a cheesy, creamy soup by stirring Bleu cheese or goat cheese or any soft, rich cheese into the tomato soup. Then toast some bread cubes with a little butter and garlic, and sprinkle the croutons on top of the cheesy roasted tomato soup. Add a pinch of freshly chopped basil and the meal is complete, and fancy enough for a special occasion!

Cheesy Cauliflower Soup

For this classic favorite you only need to add one ingredient – curry. The classic soup stands on its own quite well, but the addition of curry makes the soup more substantial and noteworthy. You may want to use a stronger Cheddar cheese in order to complement the curry, and use cream instead of milk when you puree the cooked cauliflower. Serve with a dollop of Greek yogurt and a sprinkle of chopped chives for a pretty, and delicious, classy soup.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

French Onion Soup

Even though we sometimes want our soup fast and easy, in order to turn this classic soup into a classy soup, you'll need time. The trick for getting this soup 'ready for the runway' is caramelizing the onions. This is the process of very slowly cooking onions until the sugars develop and the onions turn a light golden brown and become quite sweet. Slice the onions thinly and cook them in a big heavy pot over very low heat with some butter, but no salt, for a good twenty minutes or more. Once they are soft and sweet, you will be adding some very classy ingredients – red wine and balsamic vinegar – before you add your vegetable or chicken stock. Simmer this slowly until fragrant and you are ready for the classy finish. Ladle the soup into broiler proof bowls, then top each with a piece of cocktail rye bread and a good amount of Gruyere or other very rich cheese. Finish the soup under the broiler just long enough for the cheese to melt, then sprinkle fresh thyme leaves over the cheese and serve hot. By just slowing down the onion cooking process, and bumping up the level of ingredients, you have moved from ordinary to extraordinary with this formerly simple soup.

Soup can be a simple, classic, even humble meal. Or, you can tweak the preparation and ingredients and turn just about any simple soup into something quite special. Try these ideas, and the next time you call “soup's on,” watch the surprise, and delight, on the faces around your table!


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