We had some onions still in the garden that weren’t going to keep, so I decided to make some French Onion Soup. This recipe is from The All New Ball Book of Canning and Preserving, and I’m so glad Ball has finally come up with a safe recipe to can. I make French onion soup every winter, and it’s something my family loves. I can already tell that I’m going to have to make several batches of this because once my sons find out I’ve canned some, the requests are going to pour in. You can use your favorite white wine for this recipe. I happened to have some Chardonnay on hand, so that is what I used. Just make sure it is something you would drink. You know what they say – cook with what you would drink. I usually have those little single-serve wines on hand just for cooking, which is really handy because each little bottle has roughly 1 cup of wine.

This recipe is very similar to the one I make, but the main difference is the alcohol. This recipe calls for dry white wine, and I use dry vermouth in mine. My dad got the recipe from a restaurant in Quebec City (in Old Quebec), and it is just amazing. I’m going to substitute the alcohol in the next batch of soup I can just because I grew up tasting the vermouth and prefer it to white wine, but this recipe is very tasty as is.

Edited to add: I’ve made another batch of this soup, and I did substitute dry vermouth for the white wine, and I definitely like it better with the vermouth. I think it has a smoother taste than the white white. Give it a try – you won’t be disappointed.

French Onion Soup

1 tablespoon butter

4 pounds onions, thinly sliced

1 tablespoon salt

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoon dried thyme

3 cups dry white wine, divided (I used dry vermouth)

3 quarts beef bone broth, or commercial canned chicken, beef, or vegetable stock (I used store-bought beef cooking stock)

Melt butter in an 8-quart stainless steel or enameled Dutch oven over over medium-low heat. Stir in onion and next 3 ingredients along with 2 cups of the white wine. Cover and cook for 1 hour or until onion is very tender, stirring occasionally. Here is what my onions looked like after 1 hour:

The lighting isn’t the best, but you can see there is quite a bit of liquid from the onions.

Uncover and cook, stirring constantly, until onion is caramel colored. This took me about another 50 minutes or so to get to a light caramel color (like a light roux). Again, the lighting isn’t the best:

Add the remaining 1 cup of white wine and cook for 2 minutes, stirring to loosen any browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Stir in broth. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 15 minutes.

Ladle hot soup into a hot jar, leaving 1-inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Wipe jar rim. Center lid on jar. Apply band and adjust until fingertip tight. Place jar on rack in a pressure canner containing 2 inches of simmering water (or follow your canner manual). Repeat until all jars are filled.

Place lid on canner and turn to locked position. Adjust heat to medium high. Vent steam for 10 minutes. Place the counter weight or weighted gauge on vent; bring pressure to 10 pounds for weighted gauge canner or 11 pounds for a dial gauge canner.

Process pint jars for 60 minutes or quart jars for 1 hour 15 minutes. Turn off heat, Cool canner to zero pressure. Let stand 5 more minutes before removing lid to help prevent siphoning.

Cool jars in canner 10 minutes. Remove jars and cool. Test lids for seal after 24 hours.

Yield: 8 pints

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