French Onion Cups?
French Onion Mini Cups?
French Onion Soup Cups?
Mini French Onion Puffs?
I’m obsessing about what to call these, but it doesn’t matter – just make them!
I tend to concentrate on main dishes her on WM23, especially ones that you can make quickly. But, since football season has begun, and the holidays will be on us soon, I wanted to share my new favorite appetizer recipe.
It starts with a love for French onion soup. I’m a big fan of the soup, and I make it at least once a winter, but it’s very filling – a meal in itself. And I can’t picture it being eaten on the sofa while you watch football, or for a tailgate. These French onion soup cups give you all the flavor and richness of French onion soup, but in one bite.
You start with cooking the onions down – just like with the soup – until they are brown and caramelized, this step takes the most time, but it’s one of those things that can be cooking while you do other things. Just don’t rush cooking the onions, you don’t want these burned, you want all the sugar in the onions
to come out and create that mellow and deep flavor.
While the onions cook, you can prep the cups. The original recipe called for using muffin tins, but I felt that would be too large. I wanted bite sized so that it would be easier to eat AND you can have two (or seven!) without the guilt.
This recipe uses puff pastry (available in your freezer section). Just make sure to take it out of the freezer per package directions. Next you roll it out and cut it into squares to fit in the mini muffin tins. Fill the tins with your onion filling, and top with grated swiss cheese.
It will be tough to resist them, but let them cool a little bit – otherwise you will burn your mouth. These are good warmed up. Not that we had a lot left over, but the few we had I just stored in an air-tight container at room temperature.
Enjoy!
French Onion Soup Bites
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 2 onions sliced
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
- ½ cup beef broth
- 3 tablespoons heavy cream
- 1 package store-bought puff-pastry dough
- 12 tablespoons grated Gruyère cheese
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease the cavities of a 24-cup mini muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray.
- Cut onion in half, then slice halves thinly. You don't want rings.
- In a large sauté pan, heat the olive oil and butter over medium heat.
- Add the onions, pulling apart each strand, and sauté until tender and caramelized, 25 to 30 minutes. Season with salt, pepper and thyme.
- Add the beef broth and bring the mixture to a simmer. Simmer until the liquid has reduced almost entirely. Stir in the heavy cream.
- While the onions are cooking, roll out the puff-pastry dough a little to flatten it. Cut the dough into 1½-inch squares and then press a square into each of the cups of the prepared muffin tin.
- Place 1 tablespoons of the onion filling into each cup (I found using a fork worked best) and then top with 1 tablespoon grated Gruyère.
- Bake until golden brown, 20 to 22 minutes. Let cool for 2-5 minutes, serve.
Mini french onion puffs. Could you use crescent roll dough?
You could, and I’ve seen a recipe on the internet that does that, but it makes them very dough heavy – the pastry sheet is lighter and more flaky.