{Recipe} Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Homemade broccoli cheddar soup; it's what's for dinner!! 

Michael and I went to Panera Bread for lunch one day last week and he always gets the broccoli soup and ever since then I've wanted some more!! This was so last minute but luckily I had all ingredients on hand already. I decided to give it a whirl and make it from scratch without a recipe. A lot of thicker soups are made a similar way. I added the extra veggies but you could certainly omit them if you don't want them or like them.

Ingredients

6 tbs butter

1 large carrot, chopped

1 stalk of celery, chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

1/4 cup flour

2 cups milk (I used a cup of skim and a cup of whole)

3 cups chicken broth

1 head of broccoli, chopped

2 - 2 1/2 cups of cheddar cheese

I melted the butter in a large pot and sauteed the carrots, celery, and onions until mostly tender. I then sprinkled in the flour and stirred it all together. It's not going to look appetizing at this point, kind of clumpy and weird. Then I added the milk and then the chicken broth. Brought that to a brief boil then added the broccoli. I let it simmer for around 20 minutes, or until the broccoli is tender. Finally, I added the cheese. This recipe serves a few people so you may want to double the recipe if you need to serve a bigger family or maybe even for seconds!

You could probably just throw everything in a crock pot and let it simmer away all day and it would probably turn out just as good if you prefer it that way. I love soup so much! I like it chunky but if you would rather a more pureed texture you could just put it in a food processor. I wanted to make some homemade bread or biscuits but I decided to make the soup at such last minute that there was no time for bread so I just popped some crescents in the oven.

And of course I had this little monkey rolling around on the kitchen floor being silly.