Vegan French Onion Soup

This vegan french onion soup is delicious, rich, and easy to make! It is made with caramelized onions, thyme, sage, and white wine, which gives it your traditional french onion flavor. 

This is a recipe that I have been wanting to make for a while now. Prior to being plant-based, french onion soup used to be one of my all-time favorite meals. Since it is typically made with beef broth and topped with cheese, I haven’t been able to order it. So of course, I had to try and make my own version that’s vegan.

This recipe is the perfect comfort meal for these cold, winter months. I absolutely love caramelized onions and try to add them to whatever recipes I can! I also used vegan cheese and some delicious french bread to give it that traditional cheesy topping!

Ingredients to Make Vegan French Onion Soup:

Here’s what you’ll need to make the delicious vegan french onion soup:

• Yellow or white onions – I would suggest doing yellow or white onions as they are sweeter and caramelize better
• White wine – You’ll want to use a dry white wine such as Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc
• Vegan butter – Some of my favorite vegan butters include Mykonos vegan butter, Smart balance olive oil butter, Earth Balance but you can use any that you prefer! I would recommend using butter over olive oil as it gives the onions and soup a more traditional flavor.
• Garlic
• Sweetener of choice (sugar, honey, etc) – This helps with the caramelization of the onions! I used sugar for mine but if you’re okay with honey that would work just as well.
• Soy sauce – you can also use Worcestershire sauce. Some Worcestershire sauces contain anchovies or fish, so use one that doesn’t if you need this to be vegan/ vegetarian.
• Vegetable Broth or Vegetarian Beef Broth – I used this vegetarian beef broth powder from amazon mixed with vegetable broth to help give the base of this soup the traditional “beef” flavor. You can also just stick to using regular vegetable broth, the flavor may just turn out a little differently.
• Vegan Cheese – Some of my favorite vegan cheeses include Follow Your Heart, Chao, and Miyokos. For this recipe, I used Aldi’s vegan shredded cheese. I wouldn’t recommend it as it didn’t quite melt the way I wanted, but it still gave a good flavor. I would suggest using Mozzarella or Gruyere.
• Thyme and Sage – you can use fresh or dried
• French Bread – a baguette would be most traditional for this recipe but you can use any bread that you prefer!

How to Make Vegan French Onion Soup:

This recipe is pretty easy to make, it just takes a while due to the caramelization of the onions. The key to getting this recipe perfect is to slowly caramelize the onions which takes about an hour or so.

First, you’ll want to slice six onions into thin slices. Then heat 4 tbsp of vegan butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Wait until the butter fully melts and then add in the onions and coat with the butter. Add in 1 tsp of sugar. You’ll need to continuously stir the onions over the next hour to prevent them from burning. Also, do not turn up the heat higher than medium as this will burn your onions instead of caramelizing them. We don’t want crispy onions. You will know that the onions are done once they are a golden brown color and fully softened.

About halfway into cooking the onions, you’ll want to add 3/4 cup of white wine. Add in the wine 1/4 cup at a time, allowing the onions to absorb all of the liquid. Once all of the wine is absorbed, continue to caramelize the onions for about 15-20 more minutes.

Next add in the garlic, thyme, and sage. Add in salt and pepper to your liking and cook for another 5 minutes.

Then add in 1/2 cup of white wine, the vegetable broth, soy sauce, and vegetarian beef broth powder. Allow the mixture to simmer for about 10 minutes. While the soup simmers, set your oven to broil and arrange the french bread slices on a baking tray. Toast the bread in the oven for about 10 minutes or until golden brown. Make sure to keep an eye on it so it doesn’t burn.

If you have an oven-safe bowl, pour in some of the soup to the bowl and top with the bread and cheese. Broil for about 5 minutes until the cheese is fully melted and bubbly. If you don’t have an oven-safe bowl, add the cheese on top of the bread after the bread has toasted for 5 minutes and allow to melt.

Serve and enjoy!!

If you liked this recipe, try these ones next:

Creamy Vegan Roasted Cauliflower Soup

Caramelized Onion and Mushroom Naan Bread Pizza

Roasted Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Pizza with Cashew Ricotta