Healthy Broccoli and Cheese Soup is the ultimate creamy comfort food. Made with broccoli, Yukon potatoes, yellow onions, and cheddar cheese.
Healthy Soup Recipes are the perfect filling and light dinners to get you through the winter. Recipes like Broccoli Soup and Beef and Cabbage Roll Soup are perfect to warm you up on cold nights or if you have a cold!
HEALTHY BROCCOLI AND CHEESE SOUP
If you’re a fan of Panera Bread you’ve probably tried their wonderful Broccoli Cheddar Soup. It’s pretty amazing. But in order to make it that creamy soup Panera uses heavy cream or half and half, and lots of other heavy ingredients. There’s no way to make a soup like that healthy, right? Wrong! Panera’s Broccoli Cheddar Soup does have a lot of calories and saturated fat, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make a soup that’s just as delicious, but healthy. This Broccoli Cheese Soup recipe tastes just as delicious as Panera’s version, but it’s made with lightened ingredients, and far fewer calories.
Your whole family will love this great recipe! And you can serve yourself and everyone else big bowls knowing that it’s low-calorie, low carb, full of veggies, and low-fat. And once you get your kids hooked on this broccoli recipe they might be open to trying others like Garlic Broccoli Steaks and Parmesan Roasted Vegetables.
HEALTH BENEFITS OF BROCCOLI CHEDDAR SOUP
Instead of using heavy cream, this Broccoli Cheddar Soup uses evaporated milk and flour to thicken the broth. These ingredients are much lower in calories, but still make the Broccoli Soup amazingly creamy. To reduce the salt in the recipe, this Broccoli Cheese Soup also uses a reduced sodium chicken broth.
Along with the healthy exchanges in this recipe Broccoli Cheese Soup already has ingredients that are excellent in a healthy diet. Most obviously there’s the broccoli. Broccoli is packed with vitamin k, fiber and potassium. As far as healthy ingredients go, broccoli is truly one of the best you can add to any diet. Also, because this Broccoli Cheddar Soup is full of delicious cheese and other ingredients, even your picky eaters will enjoy a helping of veggies in this soup recipe.
Apart from the broccoli, Broccoli Cheese Soup also provides calcium and protein through the shredded cheese and milk. It also includes other healthy and filling ingredients like onions and potatoes. You can feel free to add even more veggies like pre-grated carrots and and cauliflower.
INSTANT POT BROCCOLI CHEESE SOUP RECIPE
- Set your instant pot to sauté. Add the butter and onion, and sauté.
- Add the broccoli florets, chicken stock, potatoes, Worcestershire sauce, nutmeg, black pepper, and salt.
- Set the instant pot to pressure cooker for 1 minute.
- Whisk together ¼ cup melted butter, flour, and evaporated milk until creamy.
- Let the pot sit for five minutes after it’s done pressure cooking.
- Set the pot back to saute mode. Stir in the thickening agents, until well combined.
- Add in the cheddar cheese and continue stirring until melted.
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MORE HEALTHY SOUP RECIPES
Easy Lasagna Soup
Healthy Lentil Soup
Beef and Cabbage Roll Soup
White Bean Kale Soup
VARIATIONS ON HEALTHY BROCCOLI AND CHEESE SOUP
- Vegetable Broth: Instead of using chicken broth or chicken stock, you can replace it with reduced sodium vegetable broth. This will make your Broccoli Soup vegetarian.
- Add-ins: Feel free to add more veggies to your Broccoli Cheddar Soup the next time you make it. Panera’s Broccoli Cheddar Soup has shredded carrots in it. Shredded or chopped carrots make a wonderful color and flavor addition to the soup. You can also add cauliflower. Both Cauliflower florets and carrots won’t change the flavor dramatically. If you want a more bold change you can add sun-dried tomatoes, or a little bit of celery, or garlic, along with your fresh broccoli.
- Cheese options: Cheddar is the best cheese for this Broccoli Soup, but with that you have plenty of options. You can use mild cheddar cheese, sharp cheddar cheese, or extra sharp cheddar. This recipe recommends freshly grated cheddar, but you can buy pre-shredded to make things easier. But to make your Broccoli Soup extra creamy, you can also add reduced-fat cream cheese and Velveeta along with the cheddar cheese.
- Gluten-Free: To make Healthy Broccoli Soup gluten-free you’ll need to remove or replace the all-purpose flour. The flour helps thicken the Broccoli Cheese Soup, but you can accomplish this with gluten-free ingredients. Try cornstarch or arrowroot to thicken the broth.
- Dairy-Free: It might seem impossible to make such a creamy, cheddar soup non-dairy, but you absolutely can. Firstly, replace the evaporated milk. You can use a little bit of almond milk, coconut milk or nut-free options like oat or soy milk. Then you’ll have to ditch the cheddar. Replace the cheddar cheese with a store-bought vegan cheddar option made with soy. Alternatively, replace the cheese in Healthy Broccoli Soup with nutritional yeast, mustard and paprika. Use ¼ cup nutritional yeast, ¼ teaspoon paprika, and 1 teaspoon ground mustard to mimic the taste and color that the cheddar gives the soup. To make your soup completely vegan replace the butter with olive oil
MORE ONE-POT DINNERS
Unstuffed Beef and Cabbage
Easy Turkey Chili
Moroccan Lentil Stew
Honey Chili Salmon Bake
HOW TO STORE BROCCOLI AND CHEESE SOUP
- Serve: Because of the cheese and milk in this soup recipe, you shouldn’t leave it out for more than 2 hours.
- Store: Once Broccoli Cheddar Soup has cooled to room temperature, you can store it in the fridge for 3-4 days. Cover the soup bowl or put the Healthy Broccoli Cheese Soup in an airtight container. Reheat the Broccoli Cheese soup in the microwave or on the stovetop over low heat.
- Freeze: To freeze Broccoli Cheese Soup transfer it to a quart size freezer bag or airtight container. Broccoli Cheese Soup can stay good for up to 6 months in the freezer. Let it defrost in the fridge before reheating it.
Ingredients
- 1 head broccoli
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 1 yellow onion , diced
- 1 large yukon potato , finely diced
- 1/3 cup flour
- 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- 12 ounces fat-free evaporated milk
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 cup cheddar cheese freshly shredded
Instructions
- Chop the broccoli florets and add to a medium bowl and reserve for later.
- Peel the outer layer of the stem, then dice the peeled stem.
- Add butter to a large dutch oven on medium high heat.
- Add broccoli stem, onion and potato and stir well.
- Cook for 6-8 minutes, until onions are translucent.
- Add flour and whisk well until flour is no longer visible.
- Add in broth, whisking while adding, and bring to a boil.
- Reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes.
- Add salt, pepper, nutmeg, evaporated milk, Worcestershire sauce and reserved broccoli florets and stir well until creamy.
- Cook for 5 minutes until soup is slightly thickened.
- Add in cheddar cheese, stir until melted and creamy, then serve.
Nutrition
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