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My husband and I share a love for the broccoli cheddar soup at Panera Bread. At one point, a family member shared a copycat recipe for the soup, and over time, we have adapted it to fit our family. This week when I made the soup, I tried something new: I made homemade bread bowls to serve the soup in! I’m new to making bread, but it turned out both beautiful and delicious. My husband and son are both bread lovers, so they were quite pleased.
Bread Bowl Recipe:
The bread bowl recipe that I used was from Tastes Better From Scratch: Homemade Bread Bowls. She even includes a great video showing the steps. I halved her recipe so that I only made four bread bowls; we are only a family of three and flour is a hot commodity during these times. I used my Kitchenaid Mixer which I highly recommend. Bread recipes always intimidate me because of the amount of time involved; however, most of the time is just letting the bread rise. Be brave – give it a try!
Soup:
The soup also appears to take a long time, but similarly, most of the time is spent letting the soup simmer. Otherwise, it is extremely simple and quite delicious. I have an immersion blender which I almost always use when making a creamy soup. I find blending some of the soup helps to thicken without using heavy creams. It is much easier to use the immersion blender than to transfer some of the soup to a regular blender and back (especially considering my regular blender can’t handle hot liquids).
As this soup recipe is a staple for my family, it has made its way into our cookbook. When we got married, we were gifted a blank recipe book where you can write in your own recipes. This was one of the coolest gifts I have ever received and I love adding recipes to our book whenever a recipe makes the cut. I like the idea of having it to hand down to our kids eventually. Maybe it’ll even continue getting passed through the generations. I wasn’t able to find our exact book, but this one is from the same company and looks similar: Recipe Binder
Hopefully you will enjoy this soup recipe as much as we do. Even if you don’t feel ambitious enough to make the bread bowls, the soup by itself is worth it!
Broccoli Cheddar Soup
Equipment
- Pot
- Whisk
- Immersion Blender (Optional)
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1/4 cup flour
- 2 cups milk I use 0.5%, but any milk other than skim should work.
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 1/2 lb fresh broccoli (chopped into florets)
- 1 cup shredded carrots Matchstick carrots works as well
- 4 oz. grated chedder cheese Start with 4 oz. and taste, then add more as you feel necessary. Just know that adding additional cheese with raise the fat content.
- salt and pepper To taste
Instructions
- Pre-measure your flour and milk so they are ready to go. Have the chicken broth nearby.
- Melt butter in pan over medium heat. Once melted, whisk in flour. Continue cooking flour / butter mixture for 3-5 minutes, whisking continuously. (I use a nylon whisk and non-stick pot).
- While still whisking, slowly add in the milk. Keep whisking until there are no flour lumps.
- Add in the chicken broth and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir every 5 minutes or so and turn down heat to med-low if needed.
- While the broth mixture is simmering, chop up your broccoli and shred your carrots.
- After the 20 minute simmer, add in the broccoli and carrots. Cook over low heat for 20-25 minutes.
- Add in salt and pepper to taste. Take off of heat and use an immersion blender if desired (this gives more of a mixed broccoli look throughout and thickens the soup some). Mix in cheese and serve after cheese has melted.
Once again you amaze me with your skills at making family life better. This recipe is fabulously easy considering what you are getting! Kudos to you!!