A creamy chicken soup recipe with caramelized onions and gruyere
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I’d been going through a dry spell, lacking in kitchen inspiration and feeling a bit blue, when it hit me: What I wanted was comfort food. I was itching for a creamy soup (with actual cream in it!), but I wanted it to be as familiar and easy to make as chicken soup with the charm of a bubbling bowl of cheese-laden French onion. That’s how this creamy chicken soup was born.
It gets its base flavor from caramelized onions, but if you’re imagining that you’ll have to stand over the stove for an hour, stirring sliced onions, you can squash that dreaded thought. I’ve worked in a bit of a cheat for coaxing caramelized flavor out of deeply browned onions.
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What you do is start with diced rather than sliced onions — the extra surface area helps them caramelize faster. Then, you cook them over relatively high heat — medium-high. As soon as they start to turn dark brown, you add a splash of wine. Keep cooking and stirring, allowing the now-boiling liquid to soften the onions and, within minutes, evaporate. The sugar in the wine, which is now absorbed by the onions, will encourage the allium to caramelize further. Add another splash of wine to repeat the process, and you’ll end up with onions the color of mahogany; soft, shiny and sweet.
Chicken broth and a potato, cut into cubes, stretch those onions into a soup. Pureed potato gives the soup body, and a small amount of cream adds richness. Then, chicken, sauteed and pulled into bite-size pieces, gets stirred in.
The final touch is a handful of shredded gruyere cheese. It rounds out the flavors and adds a sharp funk. As you take a bite, thin, melty strands of cheese will follow each spoonful, reminiscent of a bowl of French onion. But without the hours-long cook time and stint under a broiler.
I don’t like to pick favorites when it comes to recipes, but I’ve been making this on repeat — especially on cold, gloomy days when the sun sets too early. It’s become a welcome respite from whatever the day has thrown my way.
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