Canadian Onion Soup with Oka, Beer & Sage

This recipe begins with the familiar technique of French onion soup, but uses Canadian ingredients to take the dish in a different direction. Slowly caramelized onions create the deep, savoury base, while Canadian amber ale replaces the traditional wine, adding richness and another layer of flavour. Fresh sage works particularly well with the earthy character of the cheese and gives the soup a warm, aromatic finish.


Oka is what really shifts the dish closer to home. With roots stretching back more than a century in Quebec, it brings both the flavour and melting qualities needed for a classic gratinéed onion soup. Layered over toasted baguette and placed under a hot broiler, the cheese melts, bubbles and browns into the deeply golden crust that makes this style of soup so satisfying.

It is also a simple example of what can happen when classical technique meets ingredients from our own terroir. Rather than automatically reaching for Gruyère, the recipe asks what a Canadian cheese can bring to a familiar dish—and shows that understanding how a cheese melts, tastes and behaves under heat is just as important as following tradition.

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Serves 4

Ingredients

• 40 g unsalted butter
• 1 tbsp neutral oil
• 750 g yellow onions, thinly sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 6–8 fresh sage leaves, finely sliced
• 750 ml Canadian amber ale
• 750 ml good beef stock
• 1 bay leaf
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 4 thick slices baguette
• 160 g Oka cheese, grated or thinly sliced
• A few small sage leaves, for finishing

Method
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1. Melt the butter with the oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the onions with a small pinch of salt and cook slowly for 35–45 minutes, stirring regularly, until deeply caramelized.
2. Add the garlic and sliced sage and cook for another minute.
3. Pour in the beer, scraping the caramelized flavour from the bottom of the pan, and simmer until reduced by approximately half.
4. Add the stock and bay leaf and simmer gently for 25–30 minutes. Remove the bay leaf and adjust the seasoning.
5. Toast the baguette slices until crisp.
6. Divide the soup between four ovenproof bowls, place the toasted bread on top and cover generously with Oka.
7. Place beneath a hot broiler until the cheese has melted, bubbled and developed a deeply golden crust.
8. Finish with a few small sage leaves and serve immediately.