When putting them in a vegetable soup, do you prefer the onions to be raw or sauteed first?

Answer 1

With ANY soup, raw onions are best. I would only sautee the onions if I was eating them with steak or something. But raw onions as you make a soup, wether it's seafood, vegi soup or beef, is far better to let them soak with the broth and let the flavor of the ingredients give the soup a better taste together. The onions, after the soup is done, do not taste raw at all, they have released some of their flavor within the soup and when you eat them, they taste great, not too strong and irritable, just perfect, and they have the flavor of the broth bathed on them. Sauteed onions will just change the flavor of them and the onions will fail to release their savory addition to the taste of the ENTIRE soup. I guess it depends if you want the onions to give flavor to the soup and still taste great when you eat them, or a specific sauteed taste to the onions if you say, were making an onion soup and not a vegi or beef stew.
Sauteed onion just changes the flavor too much, like I said before, with steak or shrimp, the sauteed onions attach their flavor to the main ingredient and blend, but in a soup or broth they don't, I'd rather have the flavor of the onion added to the soup so they wont end up too sweet or soggy.

Answer 2

I put mine in 'raw' and let them cook with everything else, because then the 'flavors' are 'blended well.' To put a 'sauteed onion' in would make the vegetable soup too 'sweet' for me ... sauteeing onions causes 'carmelization' and that happens only to vegetables that have or can change to 'sugar' rapidly.

Answer 3

In Vegetable soup no..I put the onions in with the rest of the vegetables. But if I am making Onion Soup they are sauteed with Butter til they are caramelized and then I add a couple of tablespoons of flour and the wine and beef broth...

Answer 4

It depends on what flavors I want to enhance. I'll carmelize, sautee, or put in raw, or use some mix. For instance, I might carmelize a bunch of diced ones to get that rich flavor and texture, and then add raw ones to have some crunchy whole pieces to add substance to the soup.

Answer 5

Saute to a point, um I have a Q, why just the Onion, I do a quick and hot saute on all the veggies that go into my soup to get all the sugars and flavors released at the same time, heck I even throw the herbs and spices in there too

Answer 6

Sauteed till translucent.

Answer 7

Sauteed - this caramelizes the sugars and makes the onions sweeter and mellower

Answer 8

I would definitely have them sauteed first ,but if you like them strong then put them in raw!

Answer 9

when you sautee an onion it allows the sweetness in it to come out, so yes, i do that first.

Answer 10

Soup is one of the few recipes I would not saute the onions first.