A wide-rimmed ochre-glazed earthenware soup plate of golden onion soup with soft, swollen pieces of bread and strands of lightly browned onion, flecked with coarse black pepper. — Golden onion soup with soaked bread and coarse pepper.

Onion Soup Maigre (1771)

Name: Onion Soup Maigre
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 1 h 5 min
Cuisine: French
Ingredients: 900 g onions, about 6 medium; 50 g butter; 1.5 l water; 1 tsp salt, plus more to taste; ½ tsp coarsely ground black pepper; 150 g day-old country bread, sliced

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A meatless French onion soup of 1771: sliced onions colored lightly in butter, simmered in water with salt and coarse pepper, and thickened with bread.

By The Forgotten MenuPublished Oct 31, 2026

Recipe makes: About 1.5 liters, 4 servings
Prep: 15 min
Cook: 50 min
Total: 1 hr 5 min

Most of the time goes to coloring the onions slowly and evenly in butter. Once the water is in, the soup needs only a brief boil and about 10 minutes for the bread to soften.

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Golden onion soup with soaked bread and coarse pepper.

The story behind the recipe

The “Potages maigres aux oignons” in the 1771 Paris edition of La Cuisinière bourgeoise asks for nothing beyond onions, butter, water, bread, salt and coarse pepper. The onions are sliced and colored lightly in butter, and that color is nearly all the broth has to go on. A cook with some meatless broth to hand could use it in place of water, “si vous en avez,” if you have some, the book says.

Was onion soup always brown?

Not on this page. The same entry goes on to a white one. For a milk onion soup the cook uses slightly fewer onions and cooks them gently in butter “sans être colorés,” without letting them color, then pours boiling milk over them. The bread goes into the serving dish with part of the liquid, covered and set on a little warm ash until well soaked, and the rest of the liquid follows. The book states no preference between the two.

Both versions end with bread, and the brown one says how: the bread is left to mitonner in the soup “comme à l’ordinaire,” as usual. Mitonner is to simmer slowly until the bread swells and softens. On this page a potage is broth with bread in it, and that “as usual” suggests the bread went without saying.

The recipe follows directly after the book’s “Potages maigres de plusieurs façons,” on page 18 of the 1771 edition. Whether anything like it reached the cabin table of the Julie in March 1778 is unknown, and What Was the Soup Meagre John Adams Liked in France? sets John Adams’s diary beside his later memory of that first French soup.

Making it today

This is half the book’s dozen medium onions, with the butter, water and bread set by us to serve four. We follow the brown version with water. For the meatless broth the book allows, the browned-root broth of the Celery Soup Maigre (1771) comes from the recipe printed just before this one, and it can stand in for the water.

Coupez en filets environ une douzaine de moyens oignons, mettez-les dans une casserole avec un morceau de beurre, passez-les sur le feu en les retournant de tems en tems, jusqu’à ce qu’ils soient cuits & un peu colorés également, mouillez-les avec de l’eau ou du bouillon maigre si vous en avez, mettez-y du sel & du gros poivre, faites bouillir quelque bouillon, & ensuite vous y mettrez du pain pour faire mitonner votre potage comme à l’ordinaire.
Si vous voulez faire un potage de lait aux oignons, vous en mettrez un peu moins qu’il est dit ci-dessus, passez-les à petit feu avec du beurre jusqu’à ce qu’ils soient cuits sans être colorés, faites bouillir du lait & le mettez avec l’oignon assaisonné d’un peu de sel, mettez du pain tranché dans le plat que vous devez servir, avec une partie du bouillon, couvrez-le & le mettez sur un peu de cendres chaudes, quand votre pain sera bien trempé vous y mettrez le restant du bouillon. Servez.

[Menonattributed], La Cuisinière bourgeoise, suivie de l’Office, new edition (Paris: P. Guillaume Cavelier, 1771), Potages maigres aux oignons, p. 18

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Ingredients

For about 1.5 liters, 4 servings. Quantities are shown as written.

Quantities as written here, for about 1.5 liters, 4 servings.

Onions, about 6 medium900 g
Butter50 g
Water1.5 l
Salt, plus more to taste1 tsp
Coarsely ground black pepper1/2 tsp
Day-old country bread, sliced150 g

Ingredients as written here

900 g onions, about 6 medium
50 g butter
1.5 l water
1 tsp salt, plus more to taste
½ tsp coarsely ground black pepper
150 g day-old country bread, sliced

Equipment

Large heavy pot, about 4 liters, with a lid
Wooden spoon
Soup tureen or serving bowl

Instructions

Peel the onions, halve them from top to root and slice them thinly into strips.
Melt the butter in the pot over medium-low heat. Add the onions and cook for 30 to 35 minutes, turning them from time to time, until they are soft and an even light gold all through. Lower the heat if the edges start to darken before the rest has colored.
Pour in the water, add the salt and the black pepper and bring to a boil. Let it boil for 2 to 3 minutes.
Lower the heat, add the country bread and let it simmer gently, uncovered, for about 10 minutes, until the bread is soft and swollen and has thickened the soup a little. Taste for salt and serve hot from the tureen.

Nutrition

280calories per serving

Recipe makes: About 1.5 liters, 4 servings
Servings: 4

Estimated per serving (4) from USDA FoodData Central values for onions, butter and country bread.

Recipe notes

When adjusting quantities

The book asks for about a dozen medium onions and gives no other amounts. This is half its batch, with butter, water and bread set by us to serve four.

Notes

Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.

The book asks for about a dozen medium onions and nothing else by number, so every amount here is ours. For the book’s white soup, use about 750 g onions, cook them gently in the butter for 15 to 20 minutes without letting them color, and use 1.5 l whole milk brought to a boil in place of the water; lay the bread in a warmed dish with part of the hot soup, cover it for 10 minutes until well soaked, then add the rest. The soup keeps for up to 3 days in the refrigerator if chilled within 2 hours; reheat it to 165°F (74°C), adding a little water, since the bread goes on thickening it. Contains milk (butter) and wheat (bread).

Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.