We love the decadence of French onion soup but not necessarily the time it takes to make it. Cut to the core of the soup’s flavoring instead — with a butter-baked onion recipe that only has three ingredients and four steps.
It comes from Lifehacker’s Skillet section and makes for the perfect pantry raid comfort food.
The recipe uses a Vidalia onion (seen below), which is a sweet variety in the allium family and delicious even when eaten raw. However, you can use any mild or sweet onion.
To make the butter-baked onion, peel and chop off its ends and then core it. Mash some butter and a beef bouillon cube (or beef bouillon flavoring) together and stuff the spread inside the onion. Wrap it in foil and pop it into an oven to bake until soft. Voila! A French-onion-soup onion!
Claire Lower, the recipe’s author, also recommends that if you’re cooking a meat dish at the same time you pour any leftover pan juices on the cooked onion. And in the comments on the original Lifehacker post, she gives a thumbs up to the idea of substituting Worcestershire sauce for the beef bouillon cube. Another user said miso paste mixed in with the butter also works well.
You can also grill the foil-wrapped onion instead of baking it. Here’s a picture of the final product from Lifehacker’s Facebook page.
Want even more twists on this recipe?
The Cookful blog doesn’t mix the bouillon with the butter but rather layers the two in the middle of the onion.
Cooking on the Weekends suggests using vermouth with your onion and roasting it over a longer period of time so that it is very soft. Blogger Valentina Wein likes using vermouth because this wine, infused with herbs and other botanicals, adds to the flavor complexity. She also keeps the onion skin on.
And Running to the Kitchen adds olive oil, salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar, thyme and butter to its roasted onion recipe.
Who knew an onion could become such a simple, delicious side dish or standalone veggie entree!
Will you upgrade your onion and try one of these recipes?
This story originally appeared on Simplemost. Checkout Simplemost for additional stories.
