I Made Panera Bread’s Broccoli Cheddar Soup At Home | Allrecipes

I'm shifting into soup mode and today it is Panera's broccoli cheddar soup at home. I'm sorry y'all but that looks just like it. Ta-da! Look at that velvety rich perfection. Sticky. This happens to be my kids favorite soup and the only thing they order at Panera so we can make it at home because in case you haven't been to Panera lately it's not very cheap. I've seen a lot of copycat recipes but you know I like to make it as close to the original as possible. The description clearly states that it is you know broccoli and vegetables or whatever simmered in a cheese sauce. So the first thing you have to do is make a cheese sauce and then we turn that into soup. I'm gonna get my onion really fine so we don't want any big chunks of Now the difference in like Panera's broccoli cheddar soup and I think the reason why my kids like it is because it's not the version of broccoli cheese soup where it's all kind of pureed in there. It's more of like a thick rich creamy cheese base and then you just get like you know little chunks of broccoli instead of just like a bunch of little flecks of it floating around. I'm just gonna get this going and some butter. I'm gonna start by melting a half a stick of butter into your pot. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to saute our onion in here and then make our roux for our cheese sauce right with the onion. While that happens I can be grating my cheese. You know the rule. You're gonna grate your own cheese for this. This is a time where it does matter. I'm gonna start with about a cup and a half of cheese. This kind of soup is just comforting and delicious. I'm also gonna go ahead and chop up my broccoli. I've already washed this. So we want the broccoli in really small little florets. Kind of like partially chopped. You don't have to throw away the stalks either. Cut those up into salad. I'll show you how. The stalks are the best like crunchy snack. You just trim off the outside. Get to that inner like lighter color part. See and then you just chop these up in a salad. Crunchy. Delicious. Don't throw them away. All right the onions are ready. You can tell they're kind of see-through and now we're going to make our roux which is the base for our cheese sauce. Equal parts fat and flour. I'm not going to make this super thick. So I'm going to go in with just a few tablespoons. So we'll start there. Okay and then we don't want a starchy taste to our soup. So we're going to cook this for at least a minute or so. You're such a mom. No chemicals. Can't use it. Bring out the chemicals. Now I did not make the Panera recipe but in the ingredients it clearly states pasteurized processed cheese. That's what this is. And milk. I go in. I'm going to whisk in our milk so we don't have many clumps. And having the flour in there stabilizes this milk mixture. So your milk is not going to like curdle when you make it into a roux first into a cream sauce. Okay. Dijon. Also in their ingredients a little hot sauce and then white pepper. White pepper is an ingredient which is classic in a cheese sauce too. Come on. You want to come? Not a huge fan of white pepper because it's a little musty. It has its time and place. Okay so I'm going to go in with just a little bit of Dijon. About a teaspoon. A little white pepper. A little hot sauce and some salt. Okay so I'm going to let that come to a simmer. You don't know how powerful a roux will be or how thick it's going to be until it actually comes to a boil. And then we can adjust our thickness from there once it gets to that point. See how rich and thick. And now we're going to thicken it up even more by adding in our cheese. Their soup is like this color. It's like a light creamy orange color. Probably better. I'm doing it. I'm doing it because this is what you're supposed to do. Although you could stop here before this. I'm just saying. It's still going to be delicious if you don't include this. Stir that until it's all melted. It's addicting. Just give me some tortilla chips. I'll just go right in. Don't let it get too hot for this. We don't want to burn any of our hard work. So medium low. That's what you want. Another iconic look to the Panera broccoli cheddar soup are the little bits of carrots that are, you know, dispersed throughout. So for that effect, I'm using the matchstick carrots. And then I'm just going to give them just a really quick little rough chop so they're not too long. All right. And I'll just add everything right in. We're almost done. This is a really easy dinner for your family. Just saying. All right. Look how thick and velvety. Now as delicious as this is, this to me is not soup. So now let's make it soup. That's our cheese sauce. I'm just going to add in those carrots and our broccoli. And then I'm going in with some chicken broth or stock. All right. That's going to thin it out to make it more soup-like. Now look at that. Does it? Yes. But then to keep it nice and rich, a little heavy cream. We don't want to lose that richness. I'm going to bring this to a simmer and let it just kind of simmer until that broccoli is nice and tender. Nail. Put the nail on the head. Nail on the head. Look at that velvety, rich perfection. It's so easy. I strongly recommend just doubling the batch because this is something my girls would take in their lunchbox also. This is enough to give my family a portion, but there's not gonna be any leftovers. You know, it looks just like it. I mean, am I right? Let's serve it up. Back when carbs were cool, serving this in a big bread bowl was the way to go. So we're gonna serve our bread on the side. So I'm serving the soup up in a bowl. Very simply, they don't garnish it or anything. If you have extra shredded cheese you want to put on top, I say go for it. A little of that and how about a little bit of pepper. And I did not forget the crusty bread. Ta-da! Panera broccoli cheddar soup at home or at work. Let's see how we did. I happen to love the bits of broccoli that are in there. That is my favorite part. Absolutely nailed it. I wish I had the OG right here to compare because I guarantee in a blind taste test you wouldn't know, but you would probably pick this one as the winner. Not to brag. This is it. This is your cozy meal to enjoy with your family this fall or really any time of the year, but I could make this whole pot for definitely less than I could to feed my family at the restaurant. And it's just so cozy. You can double it up. I think you can make a double batch for the price of two bowls at the restaurant. If you love Panera's broccoli cheddar soup, you've got to try this version at home. You won't regret it. Why does it have to be so good? Okay, stop eating. It's just so perfect. Do you want to taste it? This is right up your alley. Perfect. Every bite's a perfect bite. How good is that? Out of 10? 60. There's nothing more to say. 10 out of 10. Or 60 out of 10. Make it.