The Most Decadent French Onion and Gruyere Scones

Sharing is caring!

The following post may contain affiliate links. If you click a link and make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra charge to you. To learn more about this, please visit my Disclaimer page. Thank you for your continued support!

Today’s recipe is French onion and gruyere scones. Why? Because sometimes you get a craving for something really decadent that isn’t sweet, chocolatey, or fruity. Sometimes, you need the jammy, savory goodness of caramelized onions in a buttery scone loaded with long shreds of funky gruyere and sprinkled with herby thyme.

When you have a craving like this, you want the recipe to be quick and easy. This one is, for the most part. You can only speed up the process of caramelizing onions so much, but the scone part is a snap. So, let’s get started!

Perfectly Jammy Caramelized Onions

Usually, I recommend slicing your onions for caramelization. However, when you’re about to use them in scones, we need smaller pieces. It’s for that reason that we’re going to dice our onion up.

So, start with about a quarter-pound-sized yellow onion. Vidalia is lovely or you can use regular yellow onions. You could use white or red if that’s what you have. They will come out alright. However, yellow is my favorite for cooking because they come out more flavorful and sweeter.

Start with the Right Cuts

Now, using a very sharp knife, cut one of the ends off. The ends are the pointier sides. By cutting one end off, you now have a flat side to set your onion on and it won’t roll away. Cut it in half top to bottom. Peel the papery skin away.

Set the onions halved side down onto the cutting board, and slice down into your onion almost to the remaining end. You want to create slices about 1/3 inch thick that go almost to the end, but don’t go all the way. This gives you a grounding so you can slice perpendicular to those cuts to get a nice dice without having to hold all the pieces together.

You’ll see chefs making cuts into their halved onions parallel to the cutting board before making the cuts into the stem. This prevents larger chunks on the sides. If you’re comfortable doing that, go for it! It’s not too hard. Otherwise, just do the top-down cuts, and chop the larger bits up after.

Cooking Low and Slow

Caramelized onions are a practice in patience, but you can always increase the heat to speed things along. Start with a good pan, a little bit of olive oil, a bit of dry white wine to deglaze, and the onion you’ve nicely diced.

Set your pan over medium heat, and drizzle in about 1 teaspoon of oil. You really don’t need much. Then, add in the onions. At this point, I use a healthy pinch of salt. Salt helps to draw the liquid out of your onions, and that will help them get soft and sweet quickly.

Toss the onions in the oil and salt, and then leave them be for about 5 minutes. At this point, give them a stir. Notice how some bits are a darker brown and some are still very pale. This is why we have wine.

After a second 5 minute cook, you’ll have some fond built up on the bottom of the pan. Deglaze a first time with about 2 tablespoons of white wine. Scrape all that oniony flavor off the pan and stir it in with the onions. This is going to color them a bit more. Continue alternating periods of cooking with deglazing in a couple of tablespoons of wine until your onions are deeply brown and jammy and no liquid remains.

Please note that the use of wine is specific to this recipe to get the flavor into your scones. Most times, you can caramelize your onions without it. Now, you’ll move your caramelize onions to the fridge to chill for an hour before you make your scones.

How to Shred Gruyere for French Onion Scones

Now, let’s talk about getting the right shred on your gruyere. Look for a wedge of the cheese, not the smoked kind, in the fancy cheese section of your grocery store. You don’t want the pre-shredded stuff as it’s coated in a little bit of powder to prevent clumping.

As you’re preparing the scone dough, you’ll use the larger holed side of your box grater. Draw your wedge down the grater, holding it so it’s taller than it is wide. This is going to give you really long, wide strands of cheese. I found that these longer strands worked better for the scones’ overall flavor and texture.

Best Practices for French Onion and Gruyere Scones

As with all scone making, it’s super important to keep everything nice and chilly. I like to put my work bowl in the fridge before I start, and I also use frozen butter. It’s for this reason you have to get your caramelized onions good and cold as well.

So, starting with your chilled bowl, measuring in your self-rising flour and salt. Since the step of caramelizing onions was a bit intense, self-rising flour keeps things a little simpler for you.

To that mixture, you’ll grate in your butter using the smaller holes on the box grater. The smaller holes help get your butter to a grainy texture before the shreds get too warm that they melt. You won’t have to work the butter into the flour as much as you would if you cut the butter in with a pastry blender.

After you toss the butter into the flour, add in the large shreds of gruyere, fresh thyme, and your caramelized onions. Give the whole affair a good tossing together so everything is evenly dispersed.

Now, it’s time for cold milk. If you have buttermilk, yay! If not, I didn’t even bother adding vinegar to the milk. Here’s why. Self-rising flour uses baking powder, which doesn’t require an acid to combust and create lift in your bakes. Milk will do a fine job without you worrying about flat scones. Mix that in until it’s shaggy.

Dust your counter with a bit of flour and then dump your shaggy dough out onto the counter. When I say “shaggy,” I mean there are still areas that are really dry, maybe loose flour still, but the majority of it is sticking together.

Fold the dough with the remaining dry stuff until it’s all pretty well incorporated. I find about 7 folds is good. Then, shape it into a 1-inch thick circle. Cut the round into 6 equal wedges, separate them, and place on a lined baking sheet. Pop into a hot oven and bake!

Serving Your French Onion and Gruyere Scones

Now that your french onion and gruyere scones are hot out of the oven, you can serve them up for breakfast, brunch, lunch, or dinner. But how should you pair them?

For breakfast and brunch, I think they’re really nice with a runny egg. You can dip your warm, cheesy scone into that luscious yolk for a perfect bite! A little sausage on the side would really make for a hearty breakfast.

If you wanted to, you could do a couple scone options so you have sweet ones as well as these savory beauties. Some of my favorites are:

• Blueberry and Lavender
• Pumpkin Spice
• Almond Poppyseed
• Vegan Golden Milk

For lunch or dinner, these go so well with tomato soup or a grilled steak and salad. They are, on their own, buttery and decadent. So, you can pair them with a meal that is either equally decadent for a total luxury or something simpler for balance.

Save Some for Later

Something I learned this week was that a larger scone fits into my toaster. If you have the opportunity, try reheating your leftover scones in the toaster for 1 minute. The outside regains its crispiness and the interior gets fluffy again.

While they’re nice at room temperature the next day, after that, they do get a little stale. If you’re not going to eat them all within a day or two, you can freeze them for up to six months. Then, defrost them on the counter and reheat in the oven at 350ºF for 5-10 minutes (depending on how well you thawed them).

Tools You’ll Need for Scone Making

Here’s my scone making kit, aka my recommendations for tools to use:

Don’t forget to subscribe to the blog for weekly updates so you don’t miss future related posts, and so you can snag your free meal planning and grocery shopping worksheet!

Comment below if you have questions, concerns, or opinions. And tag me @ellejayathome on Instagram or Twitter if you share pictures from any of my recipes. I love to hear from you!

French Onion and Gruyere Scones

Step up your brunch game with savory, buttery scones studded with deeply caramelized onions, large shreds of funky gruyere, and fresh thyme.

5 from 1 vote

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 1 hour hr 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 20 minutes mins

Course Side Dish

Cuisine American

Servings 6 scones

Equipment

• Medium mixing bowl
• Box grater
• Bench scraper
• Sheet pan
• Parchment paper or silicone baking mat

Ingredients

  

• 1 cup self-rising flour
• ½ tsp salt
• ¼ cup unsalted butter frozen
• ½ cup gruyere cold
• ½ cup caramelized onions cold
• 1 Tbsp fresh thyme
• ½ cup milk cold

Instructions

 

• Preheat the oven to 450ºF. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
• In a medium mixing bowl, grate cold butter and gruyere into the self-rising flour.
• Add the caramelized onions to the mix, and toss it all together so the butter, cheese, and onions are evenly distributed and coated in flour.
• Fold in the milk. When it's mostly combined, turn out onto a floured counter. Fold 7 times until cohesive and all the dry mix is incorporated.
• Form into a 1-inch thick circle. Cut into 6 equal wedges. Place on a lined baking sheet with 2 inches between each.
• Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Serve warm.

Keyword French Onion, Gruyere, Scones

Sharing is caring!