French Onion Soup Mix

In the middle of gearing up for a rather busy week of Fall break and the kids being home, we made some crazy awesome onion soup mix this weekend. I have two cooking segments this week so I'm going to be busy! One will be Wednesday morning at 8:45 on Fox 10 AZAM Phoenix doing some amazingly fun Fall kitchen craft ideas and activities for the kids. Friday, my second segment will be on NBC 12 Valley Dish on fun Fall cupcake decoration ideas at 3:30 PM. It seems right to be this busy doesn't it?! Let's just hope that these appearances lead to something more permanent for Chef Tess. I sure would love to have a solid home base. Not that I'm complaining! Ever!! I love what I do! That being said, I did mention the onion soup mix we made.

I won this cookbook from a giveaway on Pantry Eats. I know...I could probably write one of my own with all the homemade mix recipes we have here already, but what can I say...I'm a dope for a good cookbook. The idea of trying more mixes is always high on my list. Perhaps because I can save so much money and time. I control the ingredients. I was excited to see what the folks who wrote theMix-A-Meal Cookbook had to offer. So far, I'm impressed. 46 mix recipes and 100 original recipes using those mixes. Everything from salad dressing mixes to baking mixes to sauce and bread mixes. It's quite the little book. I think it's well worth the price of the book if you ask me. So I decided to go straight to the source and contact the folks down atMix-a-Meal.com When I talked to their representative I asked her which recipes she liked best, she suggested I try the onion soup mix recipe first. It looked simple enough. She said I could share it with all of my friends here too...so don't worry. I have permission to show you this...

For one thing, it also looked like something anyone can do! That's good! The other thing is that this recipe is what "normal" people eat. Ask my friends...I'm normal. Ask my husband...I'm a gourmet freak-fest. Just saying, "normal" is subjective. My sister would eat this. She's normal. I can vouch for that.
Things I did a little differently from the original recipe.

I omitted the dehydrated butter, since I just didn't want to open a can. I know that changes the recipe, but it worked great without it. Second, I toasted the dry onions in a dry skillet until they where lightly browned. This makes a very nice French Onion soup mix having the caramelized onion. Certainly, this step can be skipped all together if you don't want to toast them. I'm not checking your cupboard.
I also was sure to use a very good Veal Base or my favorite...
Beef Base Instant, clear beef consommé. Fat free. MSG-Free.
For a more gourmet mix, Herbes De Provence in place of the plain parsley is a good choice as well as granulated garlic instead of the onion powder.

The big test of course, was using it in a real application. Would my kids eat it?! The cookbook suggested mixing one cup of sour cream and two teaspoons of the onion soup mix to make onion dip. I adore onion dip. So, we got out our tub of fat free Homemade yogurt and measured a cup. Yogurt works people. Sour cream does too.

It really did only need the 2 tsp of mix! I was so excited! Face was so excited to stir.

He ate half a pound of carrots dipped in the onion dip...and licked the bowl clean. Yeah...I'd say that it passed the kid test.

So...there it is. It made a good 2 cups of mix.

The book gave a lot of other ways to use the onion soup mix as well...

I don't work for these guys and I don't make any money by telling you this...but...
The other good news is they are having a special! Order today and save 33% off the regular price!Click here to find out more.

Thank you Deanna Bean and Lorna Shute for a great reference to have around. No doubt, I'll be delivering a few more gems to my friends here from this book!

There you go! Way to go!