Broccoli Cheese Soup

Broccoli Cheese Soup

I love Panera Bread's broccoli cheese soup. I love dipping bits of French baguette into the soup and enjoying the flavors and textures of two pieces of food perfection come together. Last time I looked, though, that soup was loaded, I mean loaded, with sodium--something I'm supposed to be cutting back on. Sodium makes things taste so good though.

Well, I honestly don't know what the sodium content of my soup is today. I used reduced sodium chicken broth, and it doesn't taste quite as good as when I use full sodium broth, but it's still a satisfying soup.

Oh, and I'm not saying this soup tastes exactly like Panera's, but it's close. I got the recipe from my beloved Allrecipes.com, and I changed it slightly to reduce the fat as well as the sodium. Sigh. I know. If you look around this blog enough, you'll see I rarely cut back on the fat, but today I did. If you're not concerned about fat and sodium, use regular Velveeta and full sodium broth. It will taste better.

Broccoli Cheese Soup

     --Adapted from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients: 

• ¼ cup butter
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 (16 oz) package frozen chopped broccoli (or 1 lb fresh, chopped)
• ½ cup shredded or finely julienned carrots
• 4 cans chicken broth
• 1 ½ pounds Velveeta, cubed (I used the 2% Milk Velveeta)
• 2 cups milk
• 1 clove fresh garlic, minced
• 2/3 cup cornstarch
• ¼ tsp cayenne pepper

Instructions:

Reserve ½ cup chicken broth for later.

In a stockpot, melt butter over medium heat.  Cook onion in butter until softened.  Add minced garlic.  Stir in broccoli and carrots, and cover with chicken broth.  Simmer until broccoli is tender (10-15 minutes).

While broccoli simmers, place cheese and milk in a microwave safe bowl, and microwave 45 seconds at a time, stirring in between until cheese is melted.

Stir cheese/milk mixture into broccoli/chicken broth.  Add cayenne pepper. 

In a small bowl, stir cornstarch into reserved 1/2 cup of broth until dissolved.  Stir into soup; cook, stirring frequently, until thick. Simmer 10-15 minutes.

Yields 10 servings