Wednesday, August 26, 2009

French Onion Pasta



Like many people in the food blogosphere I was so excited to go see Julie & Julia. My husband had sent me the preview for this movie many many months ago and I had been anxiously awaiting its release. I loved it. I thought it was super cute and I really liked the characters. After leaving the movie I started thinking about my blog and the role it plays in my life. I wondered about my readers, what they are like, and why they decide to devote part of their day to reading about me, my cooking, and my life. I thought about how amazing it is that people tune in and how motivating that is to me. It is a creative outlet. A commitment. A challenge. As a person who truly enjoys challenges I decided to create my own little food blog challenge for myself. My challenge is to create one recipe a week completely my own. No cookbook. No blog post. No magazine. Just my brain and my pantry.

The first recipe I created was this french onion pasta. Last week I went out to dinner with a friend and she had french onion soup. It got me thinking- can I make this into a meal? Say... french onion chicken? Or french onion casserole? I decided to go with french onion pasta and I am so glad I did. This was excellent. John and I both truly enjoyed it. The picture doesn't capture how delicious the sauce was. The sauce was the perfect consistency. Not runny, not thick. We both loved this and I recommend giving it a whirl!

Source: Stephanie Cooks Original!

Ingredients:

2 cups of uncooked penne pasta
1 to 1.5 cup of chicken stock
1 packet of Lipton's Onion Soup mix
1 shallot, finely diced
2 cloves of garlic, smashed
1/2 cup of marsala wine
4 tablespoons of light cream
1 tablespoon of flour
1/4 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese
1 tablespoon of EVOO

Directions-
1- Cook pasta according to directions, set aside and keep warm.
2- In a saucepan, heat the EVOO. Add the scallions and garlic, stir continually until soft and fragrant.
3- Add the marsala wine, scraping the bottom of the pan to remove any stuck on pieces of onion.
4- Add the stock and soup mix packets, allow to cook on low for about 20 minutes.
5- Stir in flour, whisking continually until well incorporated and thickened.
6- Add the light cream, mix well.
7- Add the pasta to the sauce, stir well.
8- Pour into an oven safe dish. Top with the mozzarella cheese.
9- Set it under the broiler until the cheese gets a little crispy.

73 comments:

  1. Great job, Stephanie! This looks sooo good! I love french onion soup, so this sounds like a winner for sure. Keep up the great work! :)

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    1. This was...hands down one of my favorite dishes of all time!!! Made it twice in a matter of a few days.I like mushrooms so i added them...but exaxtly as the recipe is written.
      .its still amazing!!!

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    2. Whole family loves it! Rare to find six people that all like the same thing! Yum!

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    3. The whole family loves it! Rare to find something all six of us like. Yum!

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  2. wow, this sounds super good! im def going to have to give it a try. good luck on your challenge!!!

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  3. Oooooh this sounds so awesome! It looks even better :)

    Me and lipton soup packets are good friends so I might have to dig in the cupboard and give this a whirl ;)

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  4. My husband and I LOVE french onion soup - this looks amazing!

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  5. That sounds delicious! I think you are off to a great start with your new goal.

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  6. Great recipe! I made it tonight, but had to make a few subs. The whole family loved it. Thanks!! I will be blogging about it soon :)

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  7. are the only onions the scallions? do you think carmelized onions would work as well?

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  8. Ondrea- Carmelized onions would definitely work! If you try it let me know how it goes.

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  9. Hey there. I too was looking for something to do with my french onion soup mix. This was amazing! I used whole wheat pasta and subbed 2T lowfat milk for the cream because its all I had. Oh, and I didn't have shallots either, so I sauted onions in garlic powder. Fantastic!

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  10. I dont think Julia Child would use boxed soup in anything. I tried this with caramelized onions and it was amazing!

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  11. I love pasta! This way is so delicious!

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  12. This sounds delicious? Does anyone know how many servings this made?

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    1. It depends how big of eaters you are but I'd say it's 2-3 servings.

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  13. Do you think it would work with quinoa substitute for the pasta?

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    1. I don't know enough about quinoa to answer with confidence. I'm sorry!

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  14. I'm think I'm going to give this a try. I'm an onion lover so this should be great for me! I will have to use a pound of pasta with my gang though, so I'll just double up on the ingredients. Hopefully this will make it as one of my blog posts!

    http://thecuttingedgeofordinary.blogspot.com/

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  15. Anything I could substitute for Marsala wine?

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    Replies
    1. White wine, or even just broth! It'll change the flavor a bit but not in a bad way.

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  16. OMG tried it tonight!...like a restaurant pasta...SOOO GOOD!

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  17. Do you use SCALLLIONS OR SHALLOTS?

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    1. LOL Shallots!!! GOOD CATCH! Going to fix this now!

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  18. I'm in the uk, what's Evoo???

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  19. Picture shows green varnish on top. What did you use? I want mine to look fancy too :-)

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  20. Picture shows green garnish. What did you use? I want mine to look fancy too! Lol!
    Also, ingredients say 1 packet of soup mix, but directions say add "packets". Just want to make it right the first time :-)

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    1. Hi Heather! It's just dried parsley- I add it to everything to make it look nice lol! And it's just 1 packet!

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  21. Just made this... so great! I threw the sauce.in a blender since im not a fan of chunks of onion... so good. Also subbed the cream for greek yogurt! Thanks for the great recipe!

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  22. Does this dish need the wine?

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  23. What size of pan did you use?

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    Replies
    1. I used a round pie dish, but you can use an 8x8 or any small dish.

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  24. Do i have to use light cream? Can I use lactose free milk instead?

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    1. Your choice. With any substitute it will effect the outcome, but it'll work.

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  25. Sounds amazing! Making this tomorrow night. have to dbl. the recipe for my crowd though. I wonder how it would turn out if you added shredded rotissorie chicken to it and make it the main dish?

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  26. This was amazing! Going to try with chicken next time!

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  27. I am going to make this for the first timw tomorrow and was wondering if some thinly sliced steak would go well in it?

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  28. Sloane Alexandra SmithNovember 10, 2012 at 8:15 PM

    Really good! I used 1/2 & 1/2 cream and added 3 tbs. of sour cream as well. Used "not-chicken" broth, as I'm a vegetarian. Came out hearty and delicious. Beef stroganoff was one of my favorite meals before I gave up meat a year ago...this is a delicious substitute! Next time I'll add mushrooms, too. Thank you, Stephanie :)

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  29. So delicious! I made it for my family for the first time last night and after just one bite, my husband said he calls dibs on leftovers! It was a big hit with my boys as well. Definitely a keeper. Thank you so much for posting this!!!

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  30. I made this for my family for the first time last night, it was an instant favorite! I think next time, on top of the cheese, I'll put bacon on there as well. It just sounds like that would work. Also, I didn't have the right cheese, so I used pepper jack (were big spicy eaters) and that worked well too. Thanks so much for posting this recipe =-)

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  31. What is EVOO?
    -Australian

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  32. what is light cream?

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    Replies
    1. It's a type of cream... like there's heavy cream, there's also light cream.

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  33. Sounds great. Will try soon and add to my recipe collecting.

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  34. Made this tonight and OMG DELICIOUS !!! I added a little more marsala than called for and added a box of fresh mushrooms and small vidalia onion to garlic and shallot in EVOO and a little bit of butter.. It was amazing !! Exactly like the french onion soup !! Next time i make it and that will be SOON will add some chicken pieces to add a protein and DOUBLE the recipe !!! thanks so much for this amazing dish...love it !!!

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  35. I'm doing this pasta tonight for my family my husband and I are hosting Christmas eve dinner ill let you know how was it, it looks delicious.

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  36. AMAZING!! Used greek yogurt instead of light cream and worked out so well!

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  37. How many servings is this recipe?

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  38. I just made this recipe...This stuff is amazing and easy to make!!! Thankyou!

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  39. I am out of chicken stock, do you think vegetable stock would taste horrible with it?

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  40. How much sauce is created in this recipe? For instance would there be enough sauce for chicken on the side or is there just enough sauce to coat the pasta? Looking forward to making this real soon! Sounds delicious!!

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    1. I think you could toss chicken in, but it won't make enough to cover chicken and pasta.

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  41. I made this tonight for dinner. I used Chardonnay (I couldnt find Marsala) but otherwise followed the recipe. It was AMAZING! I'll have to tweak it a bit, as my sauce was a bit thin, but it was incredibly delicious. Even my husband (who normally doesn't care for pasta dishes, or ever has a second helping) had two plates full! Thank you SO much! And good job!!!!

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  42. very nice..i think next time i will try just carmelied onions rather than the onion soup mix...thanks for recipe!

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  43. This was delicious!!! I made it tonight and my husband said he "wasn't hungry". He ended up eating a bowl + seconds :) I will be making this again!

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  44. What is the green stuff?

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    1. Parsley- mostly for the picture, but you can add it if you want!

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  45. Sounds similar to a dish I order when I go to Romano's Macaroni Grill. They use rigatoni instead of penne pasta, and add mushrooms and chicken. Absolutely delish.

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  46. In the ingredients you say 1 packet of onion soup mix. In the instructions you say add the packets. Typo? Also "Add the stock and soup mix packets, allow to cook on low for about 20 minutes." 20 minutes seems kinda long.

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    1. Yes, it's just one packet. Feel free to cook it less, however I did 20 minutes and found it appropriate.

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  47. I'm going to top it with French's Crispy French Fried Onions too! YUM!

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  48. This looks like a great pasta dish. The only thing I wonder is could you find a French onion soup mix without MSG. I love this soup but I don't know why they have to use this ingredient.

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  49. Hi Stephanie, is this freezer friendly ?

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  50. If it uses packet soup you can hardly call it a recipe!

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    1. If you can't say something nice - don't say it

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  51. Oh my gosh...this was fabulous! I'm pure Italian and have a plethora of pasta recipes, but this is probably our new favorite. (We think the leftovers tasted even more incredible the next day!) Thanks so much for sharing!

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  52. This was excellent took it to a progressive dinner party I had made a triple batch and very little left. I out in crockpot to keep warm and melted cheese added chicken. Definitely will be made again.

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