Heads up Diamonds! Soup Season has commenced, and it’s coming in full force with my ultimate broccoli cheddar creaminess!! This soup has got to be one of the world’s most popular comfort foods, and I definitely don’t question why! You get a delicious, comforting meal packed with some good greens, fabulous flavors, and lots & lots of cheese. You can never go wrong with a big bowl of this next to a toasted honey ham and Swiss to dip right into this thick soup! I feel like sometimes when we think of soup we think of a family meal at home when we’re super cold, but that doesn’t always have to be the case. You are more than welcomed to make this in your crook pot on the kitchen counter; keeping it hot for hours to have people serve themselves at on game days, Friendsgiving, or holiday get togethers. It’s the perfect fall party food without anyone ever even realizing it! We’re living in a world right now where things are changing so drastically everyday, and we should be doing the same with our food. How we look at eating, and serving our guests doesn’t have to be the same as it once was! Change is good & it needs to be embraced, and what better way to do that then with the food that we indulge in?!
You’ll want to first small dice a white onion, peel & chop a large carrot, and medium dice two stalks of celery. It’s the tried and true trio for every single soup that I make! Even if you feel like you don’t need the carrot or celery because you’re not crazy about either vegetable, you do! It gives such immense flavor, so you’d be missing out on all that if you’d skip out on adding these ingredients.
In a large stalk pot, pour in 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil, and a half a stick of butter. Don’t worry Diamonds.. I know that sounds like a lot, BUT the butter is going to help thicken our soup once we mix our flour in with it. (Butter and flour is called a roux)
- Once all the fat melts down, throw in the vegetable trio! Most people only let the veggies sweat down, and get translucent, but I actually prefer to let them cook long enough to where they get caramelized with a pretty brown color crusted on each piece of them.
- After 15-20 minutes of sweating out the vegetables, sprinkle in a 1/2 cup or so of flour.
- Make sure to mix the flour together vigorously with the vegetables so that there are no large lumps of flour left over!
- Cut up a whole head of broccoli into medium/small pieces. I like to have different size pieces for a variety of textures to be able to actually chew on something when you take a spoonful since sometimes when you’re indulging in a really creamy soup it can be overwhelming not having different textures to enjoy.
- Throw the broccoli on top of our thickened vegetable mixture, and add a whole box of chicken or vegetable stalk. Whichever you prefer will work really great!
After pouring in your stalk of choice let the soup simmer on low for one hour. The soup will appear extremely thick, but you want it to be like that considering the milk and cream that we will be putting in will add just the right amount of liquid that you’re looking for! I like soup that is meant to be creamy on the more thicker side because it just makes it that much more decadent! If you were to not make the soup as thick in the beginning, your end product would turn out on the more milky side than you’re going to desire after adding in the liquids.
- Before adding in more liquids, place in a half a block of cream cheese. This is what every broccoli cheddar soup was missing every time you ate it! You just never ever knew it. 😉 It just gives it a little somethin’ somethin’, along with a touch of luxuriousness running through the whole pot!
Once the cream cheese is all melted in.. pour in 1 cup of any milk of your choice. I used two percent, but I know a lot of people (especially when cooking) won’t use anything other than whole milk, and that’s perfectly fine. Even better honestly if you ask me! Obviously the more whole fat milk products you use, the richer your soup will become! After adding the milk in, finish with two cups of heavy whipping cream, and an entire bag of shredded cheddar cheese. Yes, Diamonds… an entire bag! Don’t skimp out on the cheese. It’s broccoli cheddar soup after all, so you definitely want to taste that cheddary goodness, along with the broccoli of course!
You can serve this soup with a grilled cheese to indulge in even more cheese, another type of grilled sandwich (possibly a panini), a hoagie of some sort, or just a few saltines as I did! Anything and everything would pair beautifully with this soup.. it’s just the type that will marry amazingly with anything you choose. Broccoli cheddar is by far the queen of fall this season; especially this bowl of soup specifically being that it was truly the best broccoli cheddar soup that I have ever had in my life! I really feel as though you Diamonds will think the same! It was so so good that I wish I was curled up with a bowl of it right now binge watching a hallmark movie!
Deepfrieddiamonds 