Mushroom Onion Soup

October in Chicago is the city at its best: crisp air, leaves doing what they do, the lake somewhere off to the east doing its September-gray-blue thing. The drive to school in the morning is past murals I have been learning since May and I know them all now — which ones are new, which ones are old and slightly faded, which one is a portrait of a man I have never learned the name of who watches from the side of a building on 18th Street. Pilsen is my neighborhood now. I belong to it and it to me in the small ways that places and people belong to each other.

The education policy piece I wrote ran this week — it was in a newsletter that goes to school administrators across Illinois. About material costs for new SpEd teachers, what we buy with our own money, the math of it. The principal of a suburban SpEd program emailed me to say she was sharing it with her new teachers as an example of how to think about classroom finances. A first-year teacher in Rockford emailed to say she had cried reading it because she had spent four hundred dollars of her own money in the first month. I know. I told her: I know.

Made mushroom risotto this week — a real one, with Arborio rice and dry white wine and hot chicken broth added ladle by ladle and the constant stirring that is either meditative or an act of violence against a Tuesday night depending on your energy level. Under four dollars. The mushrooms were cremini from the Jewel on clearance — one dollar fifty for a container. The stirring took thirty minutes. I listened to the Cubs game on the radio while I stirred.

Risotto is the food of a person with no one waiting for dinner, which can be said in a neutral or a sad way. I say it neutrally. I am twenty-three and living alone in Pilsen and making risotto while the Cubs play on the radio and that is a life. It is a good life. I stir the rice and add the broth and taste it when it is done and think: yes. This is exactly right.

That risotto week reminded me that mushrooms are my weeknight anchor — affordable, forgiving, and capable of making a one-person kitchen smell like somewhere worth being. When the stirring energy isn’t there but the need for something warm and mushroom-forward still is, this Mushroom Onion Soup is where I land: same cremini mushrooms from the Jewel, same quiet Tuesday logic, different pot. It’s the kind of recipe that asks very little of you and gives back more than it should.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 50 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 lb cremini or button mushrooms, sliced
2 medium yellow onions, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves (or 1/2 teaspoon dried)
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Salt and black pepper to taste
Fresh parsley, chopped, for garnish

Instructions

Caramelize the onions. In a large heavy-bottomed pot, melt butter with olive oil over medium-low heat. Add the sliced onions and a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 18–20 minutes until onions are soft, golden, and deeply caramelized.
Add garlic and mushrooms. Increase heat to medium. Add the minced garlic and cook 1 minute until fragrant. Add the sliced mushrooms and stir to combine. Cook for 6–8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms have released their liquid and begun to brown.
Deglaze with wine. Pour in the white wine and scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Let the wine cook down for 2 minutes.
Add broth and simmer. Add the broth, thyme, and Worcestershire sauce. Bring to a gentle boil, then reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 15 minutes to let the flavors develop.
Season and serve. Taste and adjust salt and pepper. Ladle into bowls and top with fresh parsley. Serve with crusty bread if you have it.

Nutrition (per serving)

Mushroom Onion Soup — The Quiet Kind of Cooking That Feels Like Enough