A healthier French Onion Soup

I was recently contacted by the people from Assisted Living at Sunrise of Mobberley and asked if I would like to try cooking one of their healthy living recipes.  Sunrise Senior Living provides senior living communities, assisted living, and senior care services such as Alzheimer's and dementia care in the US, Canada, and the UK. Here in the UK, they have 27 facilities providing award winning care here for over 30 years.

There was a wide variety of healthy recipes to choose from . . . at Sunrise Senior Living,  they  prepare all the meals in their own kitchens each and every day. The menus are varied and designed to be nutritionally balanced. In fact, they even provide you with a nutritional breakdown of each recipe that they use, so that you can see exactly how much protein, fat, fibre, calories and so on is contained in the meals they serve.  I was well impressed.  It was difficult for me to make up my mind.

I printed out several of their recipe cards and this is the first one I cooked.   It was really delicious and it was nice knowing that it was nutritionally balanced and designed to be healthy.

*French Onion Soup*
Serves 4

Printable Recipe  

A delicious healthier eating recipe from Taste of Sunrise.  

15g butter (2 TBS)

1 1/2 Spanish onions, peeled and sliced

20ml Sunflower oil (4 tsp)

30ml sherry (2 TBS)

2 sprigs of thyme

625ml beef stock (2 2/3 cups)

15g cornflour (1 2/3 TBS)

1 tsp gravy granules

5 ml of Worcestershire Sauce (1 tsp)

pinch salt

pinch ground black pepper

1/2 ciabatta roll

15g Parmesan cheese, grated (4 tsp)

small bunch parsley chopped    

Heat the oil in a pan.  Add the onions and saute for two minutes.  Add the sherry and thyme.  Reduce by half in order to cook off the alcohol.  Add the butter and the stock.  Bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer, covered, for 30 to 35 minutes.    

Mix the cornflour and Worcestershiare sauce together and add a little water to make a paste.  Whisk slowly into the soup.  Return to a simmer.  Simmer for a further 10 minutes.   Whisk in the gravy granules and season to taste.



Cut the ciabatta roll into 4 slices and grill both sides until golden in colour.  Top with the parmesan cheese and grill for 1 minutes until golden and melted.   Serve the soup topped with the cheese croutons and garnished with parsley.

Nutritional Info:
(per serving)
 Energy - 140kcals
salt -   0.9g
fat - 7.1g
saturated fat - 2.5g
sugars - 1.2g