The Best Broccoli Cheese Soup It’s an easy soup to make and is ready in 40 minutes. It’s absolutely perfect comfort food and I couldn’t stop eating it. I ate it for lunch and dinner for a couple straight days until it was gone. I loved this soup beyond words.
Our The Best Broccoli Cheese Soup recipe has taken quite a few years to get right: taste, flavour and consistency. This might not be an exact replica of Panera’s Broccoli Cheddar Soup… BUT it’s so good you’ll be eating it right out of the pot before your friends and family have a chance to pour themselves a bowl!
Broccoli Cheese Soup is the ultimate comfort food! This is deliciously cheesy, amazingly rich and creamy, and it has plenty of fresh broccoli (cut into bitty bitty pieces of course) dotted throughout
The Best Broccoli Cheese Soup
When I visited my hometown New York a few years ago, I was taken to Panera’s and was immediately given a steaming hot bowl of Broccoli Cheddar Soup. Dipping into it, I could not believe how beautifully thick and creamy it was… and since then I’ve been making it at home for us!
Thick and creamy with an ABUNDANCE of broccoli and American cheddar cheese!
Here’s how I make it!
HOW TO MAKE BROCCOLI CHEDDAR SOUP
- The Cast of Characters: Butter, chopped onion, flour, milk, half-and-half, broccoli, nutmeg (I have fresh, but any nutmeg is fine), cheese, and salt and pepper if you need it.
- Melt the butter in a pot and saute the onions until they’re beginning to turn translucent, about 3 minutes or so.
- Sprinkle in the flour and stir it into the onions. Let it cook for a minute or so…
- Pour in the half-and-half too, because you’re naughty.
- Add in the nutmeg (makes the soup extra delicious!)…
- Then toss in the broccoli and add in a little salt (just go a little easy on the salt because the cheese has plenty)…
- And plenty of pepper. Yum. Yum
- Then just cover the pot and simmer the soup on low for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the broccoli is nice and tender. This’ll give the soup time to develop some nice broccoli flavor, and it’ll give you time to grate up the cheese.
- Next, throw in the cheese. This is mild cheddar cheese, but you can use sharp cheddar, Monterey Jack, Pepper Jack, even a little goat cheese or gruyere to make things really luscious. You pick the cheese!
Now it’s time to make another decision. What consistency would you like your broccoli-cheese soup to have?
- You could leave it like it is now. You could mash it with a potato masher to break it up a little bit.
- Or you could totally puree it, either with an immersion blender OR with a blender in one or two batches, depending on how large your blender is.
- I happen to like it pureed, so I run it through the blender. (in this part you have to be very careful because the soup will be very hot! if you cover the blender completely the soup can jump out and burn you, so I use the lid but not the center of it).
*Note: You can also choose to puree it before adding the cheese, but I don’t find that it really matters much when you add it. Still tastes delicious either way.
Pour it back into the pot when it’s blended, just to make sure it’s nice and hot. Splash in a little milk or chicken broth if it needs just a little thinning. The soup shouldn’t be perfectly smooth, though—nice and textured is good.
you can serve it in the traditional way or make bread bowls.
Just lop off the top and pull out the innards, leaving a little rim for support. I didn’t do this for the photo, but if you pop the rolls in a 350 degree oven for a few minutes, it’ll crust them up and make them hold the soup a little better.
So many great broccoli-cheese soups out there, my friends, and I don’t think I’ve ever met one I didn’t like. So take this and run with it—make it all yours by switching up the cheese, even adding a dash or two of Worcestershire, Tabasco, or whatever you can think of.
But most importantly: enjoy. Broccoli-cheese soup deserves to be savored.
Ingredients
- 1 whole onion diced
- 1 stick butter
- 1/3 cup flour
- 4 cup whole milk
- 2 cup half-and-half
- 4 heads broccoli cut into florets
- 1 pinch nutmeg
- 3 cup grated cheese mild cheddar, sharp cheddar, jack, etc.
- Small dash of salt more if needed
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 2 cup chicken broth if needed for thinning
Instructions
- Melt butter in a pot over medium heat, then add the onions. Cook the onions for 3 to 4 minutes, then sprinkle the flour over the top. Stir to combine and cook for 1 minute or so, then pour in milk and half-and-half. Add nutmeg, then add broccoli, a small dash of salt, and plenty of black pepper.
- Cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the broccoli is tender. Stir in cheese and allow to melt.
- Taste seasonings and adjust if needed. Then either serve as is, or mash it with a potato masher to break up the broccoli a bit, or transfer to a blender in two batches and puree completely. (If you puree it in a blender, return it to the heat and allow to heat up. Splash in chicken broth if needed for thinning.) Enjoy!
