Extra cheesy and perfectly creamy, this Broccoli Cheddar Soup recipe is also loaded with veggies! It’s a tasty way to sneak in some extra vegetables while satisfying a craving for warm comfort food in the chilly months. I love my bowls topped with crispy bacon and even more melty cheese!
Looking for more cozy soup recipes to carry you through soup season? This creamy chicken wild rice soup has been a longtime family favorite, and readers come back again and again for my lasagna soup and slow cooker beef and barley stew!
This broccoli cheddar cheese soup has more vegetables than a farmer’s market stall! You’d never tell by how utterly rich and creamy it is, though. I made sure to fill this soup with all the cozy flavors I love in classic broccoli cheddar soup recipes, with a dose of bonus vegetables mixed in with all that deliciously melty, gooey cheese. Even my oldest daughter, who is not a soup fan, asks for seconds whenever I have a pot of this on the stove. It’s the BEST broccoli cheese soup recipe!
This broccoli soup with cheddar is right up there with my Hungarian Goulash and Smoked Turkey Pot Pie Soup as some of our favorite cold-weather meals.
What Makes This the Best Broccoli Cheddar Cheese Soup?
- Texture. For me, a smooth and creamy broccoli cheddar soup is a must. It should NOT be thick and gloopy like a bowl of melted Cheez-Whiz, you know what I mean? I’ve encountered it so many times in restaurants. That’s why the silky smooth texture is the main reason I love this homemade version!
- Tasty bits of broccoli. I also like it when I can see and taste the pieces of broccoli in my cheese soup, so I take care to not blitz the broccoli too much. Of course, if you’d rather the broccoli go undetected, blend as much as you’d like!
- Big flavor. For me and my family, sharp cheddar is where it’s at. The extra sharpness guarantees that this soup is loaded with rich, cheesy flavor. No bland broccoli cheddar cheese soup, here.
- Plenty of veggies. I packed quite a lot of vegetables into this soup, but nobody will ever know. A sneaky mix of potato and cauliflower blends in with the rest of the soup. It acts as a natural thickener and makes the soup extra wholesome.
- BACON!! Enough said? Bacon makes just about every recipe better, right?! Smoky, crispy bacon is the perfect garnish that plays off the cheesy flavors in this soup.
Recipe Ingredients
When I said this soup is loaded with vegetables, I meant it. Of course, there’s the obvious broccoli in there, but there’s also cauliflower, onion, potatoes, and carrots. So much goodness going on! Have a look at my ingredient notes here and scroll to the recipe card after the post for a printable list with amounts.
- Bacon – I’m partial to thick-cut bacon, but any kind will do. You could also use diced ham or pancetta.
- Chicken broth – I use low sodium broth so I can better control the salt content.
- Veggies – My “bonus” vegetables include russet potatoes (or another starchy potato, like Yukon gold), cauliflower, and carrots. But there’s plenty of wiggle room for your favorite vegetables, too.
- Butter and flour – You’ll melt the butter and add the flour to make a “roux” to thicken the soup. You can also use olive oil in place of butter.
- Onion and garlic – To build on the flavors. I use yellow onion, but any mild variety works. Fresh garlic has the best flavor but you can also substitute 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder per fresh clove if needed.
- Half-and-half – You can also use heavy cream for a richer soup.
- Broccoli – I chop up my broccoli florets without the stems.
- Cheddar – For the soup itself and to sprinkle on top when serving. I highly recommend using a box grater to shred the cheese fresh from the block. Pre-shredded, packaged cheese contains additives that keep the cheese from clumping together, but it also prevents the cheese from melting smoothly.
- Bay leaf
- Salt and pepper
How to Make Broccoli Cheddar Soup
With the help of a high-powered blender (I love my Vitamix Pro Series 750) this soup comes together in a snap. If you don’t have a blender, you could always mash up the ingredients with a potato masher or similar. The soup will be noticeably chunkier but still delicious! Get a feel for the steps here and scroll to the recipe card for printable instructions.
- Cook the bacon. Take out a large pot and fry up the bacon until it’s chewy-crisp or to your liking. Then, crumble or chop it into small pieces.
- Boil the potatoes and cauliflower. In a saucepan, boil the potatoes and cauliflower in chicken broth until both are fork-tender. Let that cool off for 10-15 minutes, then puree the veggies in your blender. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan for now.
- Prepare the soup base. Get onion and garlic sautéeing with butter in the same pot that you cooked the bacon. Stir in the flour, then whisk in the half-and-half. Pour in the remaining chicken broth and bay leaf and simmer until that’s slightly thickened.
- Cook the carrots and broccoli. Add the broccoli and carrots and let them simmer until tender. Next, fish out the bay leaf. Pour half of the soup mixture into the blender and blend until smooth. Add it back to the pot along with the potato purée from earlier.
- Add the finishing touches. Lastly, melt in the cheese and season to taste. Serve with bacon pieces and sharp cheddar for garnish.
How To thicken up broccoli cheddar soup
If you feel like your broccoli and cheese soup is a bit too thin, you can easily thicken it:
- Add more cheese. My favorite way to thicken this soup is by adding more cheese, of course!
- Add butter and flour. Your next best bet is to thicken the soup with what’s called “beurre manié” in French cooking: mix equal parts flour and butter into a paste, and stir that in.
- Make a slurry. You can also make a slurry with cornstarch and cold water or broth, and stir that into the soup while it simmers to thicken.
If you’d like to loosen up soup that’s too thick, simply add more broth until you like the texture. You could also use extra half-and-half or milk. Taste and adjust the seasoning, as you might want to add a bit more salt and pepper.
Tips for Success
- Use GOOD cheese. The cheese is, hands-down, the most important ingredient in this soup. The soup will taste as good as the cheese you use. I recommend getting a block of good cheddar cheese. We use sharp cheddar.
- Blend the vegetables to your preference. I’m not a fan of completely smooth broccoli soup. I prefer to have some chunks of broccoli and carrots. If you don’t, you can blend them completely until smooth. Or you can leave them even more chunky!
- Taste before adding salt. Give the soup a little taste test when it’s ready, to see if you really need to add salt. You can also add more pepper if needed.
- Make it vegetarian. If you want a vegetarian broccoli and cheddar soup, simply omit the bacon and use veggie broth instead of chicken broth.
Serving Suggestions
My favorite way to serve this broccoli cheddar cheese soup is with a side of fluffy popovers (or sourdough popovers) slathered with butter for dipping. I grew up dunking popovers into my soups and my whole family is just as obsessed! This creamy soup also goes great with these honey cornbread muffins for a delicious sweet-savory contrast. And you can never go wrong with homemade garlic bread or a crispy grilled cheese on the side. Always a classic!
Storing and Reheating Leftover Soup
- Refrigerate. Properly stored airtight, this broccoli cheese soup will last for up to 4 days in the fridge.
- Reheat. Warm the soup gently in a saucepan over medium-low heat until it’s hot throughout, or you can reheat leftovers in the microwave.
- Freeze. You can definitely freeze this soup, though the broccoli just tends to lose some of its freshness. To freeze, transfer the cooled soup to a freezer container (leave some room for expansion) and freeze it for up to 2 months. Thaw the soup in the fridge overnight before reheating.
More Creamy Soup Recipes
Broccoli Cheddar Soup
Ingredients
- 6 slices thick-cut bacon
- 5 cups low-sodium chicken broth divided
- 1 large russet potato peeled and cut into 1-1/2″ pieces
- 2 cups chopped about 1″ size cauliflower florets
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 cup small-diced yellow onion
- 2 large garlic cloves minced
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup half and half
- 1 bay leaf
- 4 cups chopped about 1″ size broccoli florets (no stems)
- 1 cup small-diced carrots
- 12 ounces coarsely grated sharp cheddar cheese plus more for garnish – Use the large holes on a box grater.
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt or to taste
Instructions
- In a large heavy pot over medium heat, fry the bacon until chewy-crisp. Set bacon on a paper towel-lined plate to cool, and then crumble or chop into small pieces.
- While bacon is frying, place a medium saucepan on another burner. Add 3 cups of the chicken broth and bring to a boil over high heat. Turn the heat down to medium-high. Carefully add potatoes and cook for 10 minutes. Then add the cauliflower and cook for 5 minutes more. When both the potatoes and cauliflower are fork-tender, remove the saucepan from the heat. Let sit for 10 to 15 minutes, to cool just a bit. Then, transfer to a powerful blender and puree until silky smooth. Pour mixture back into saucepan. No need to wash the blender container – you'll use it one more time yet!
- Remove all but two tablespoons of bacon fat from the large pot, and then add the butter. Return the pot to medium heat. Once butter is melted, add onion and garlic, stirring occasionally until onion is nicely softened. Stir in flour and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring occasionally. Then slowly whisk in the half and half until smooth. Add the remaining 2 cups of chicken broth and bay leaf, and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook until slightly thickened. This should take 10 minutes or so.
- Add broccoli and carrots to the broth mixture in the large pot. Simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes, or until broccoli and carrots are tender. Remove bay leaf. Ladle half of soup mixture into blender container and blend until smooth. Add blended mixture back to the large pot, along with the pureed potatoes and cauliflower mixture. Add cheese and black pepper, and stir until cheese is completely melted. Now taste the soup and add kosher salt as you like.
- Serve in bowls, garnished with bacon pieces and a sprinkling of grated sharp cheddar.
Notes
Nutrition Information:
Connect with Vitamix on their website and social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
I highly recommend a Vitamix blender, such as the Professional Series 750 featured in this post.
This blender continues to amaze me every single time I use it. There is so. much. power. It blends the potatoes and cauliflower into the silkiest consistency. Fast.
I also want to share about how much we like the Personal Cup Adapter and the personal size blending cups. The Vitamix is so easy (and fun!) to use, that our daughters can now regularly be seen making their own smoothies. They especially like using this cup adapter, where they can customize exactly what goes into their own individual-sized smoothie, and then cap it off with a spill-proof lid. Off they go!
Thank you to Vitamix for sending me the blender featured in this post and for providing another one as a giveaway prize. This post was originally published in 2018, then updated in 2022.
Fantastic!!! I like my veggies, so hand grated potatoes, cauliflower and sliced my broccoli and carrots by hand. Added sliced green onions, also with garnish. Everybody loved it!!! I could tell, table was quiet. lol
SO GLAD you like this soup!!
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Thank you!! We had a wedding shower at a quaint little place here in May and a delicious broccoli soup was served. Our ladies’ ministry director then asked if I could duplicate the recipe for our Father’s Day luncheon. My husband and sons are all about the meat in any dish, so I felt like they would need some meat in it and decided the rest of the men would feel the same way. I don’t usually make broccoli soups, so to the Internet I went. I found a few recipes and yours caught and held my attention because it had bacon AND potatoes AND cauliflower!! I still felt like it probably needed more meat, so I added some to it. It was devoured by the men. Now I have been requested to make it again for a singles meeting this weekend. Even with the changes, I feel like the integrity of the recipe remains. Again, thank you so much for sharing the recipe!! Here are the changes I made: I quadrupled the recipe, so used 1 lb of bacon, but did not crisp it completely because I was making it ahead of time so they could reheat for the luncheon. I used all of the drippings plus butter. I added a chopped leek with the onion and garlic.
I ran 1 lb of Conecuh through my food processor and added it with the onion stuff before adding the flour.
I used less cheese, 8 oz instead of 12 per recipe. (I miscalculated how much I would need when quadrupled, so just used what I had.)
I added smoked paprika, fresh nutmeg, and cayenne at the end with the (not crisp) bacon after blending the soup. I cooked the peeled stems with the cauliflower and carrots and potatoes.
Then I kind of steam cooked the chopped broccoli crowns in a separate pot until just tender. They stirred them into the heated pot of soup just before serving.
So – again, thank you! Thank you!!
Has anyone made this in the blender that cooks and blends hot soups, so you just throw the ingredients in and go (I was omitting bacon anyway)? If so, did you need to make any changes or recommend any? Thank you!
So all three of my picky eaters love this soup! My husband who is the pickiest gives this soup 5 stars. I followed recipe with the only exception of using King Arthur gluten free flour. So yummy! Finally a way to get more veggies into my boys!!
Delicious soup!!! Although I didn’t use the blender at all as I like my soup a bit more chunky. I also added the bacon back in at the same time as the cheese (I did about 2.5 cups of cheese!) and the bacony flavour was very prominent and fantastic :)
This is wonderful, we make it all the time! Worth the extra steps!
Amazing! Kids loved it and requested it for their school lunches until it ran out. Making it again today!
Wonderful! So glad to hear this!!
Great recipe. I used pureed veggies for thickening for the first time this week and I am a huge fan. I love that you did it here too. I may add a can of chickpeas too for extra protein… hello 3 teenage boys.
Thank you! Let me know how the chickpeas work out – sounds like a great idea to me!!
Making this now because, like Kaye, I’m craving it (it’s only 80 today), have everything and fresh chicken stock. Like Linda I’ll use stems too. Am flummoxed: why not use the stems? My late dear FIL toured us through the broccoli fields in Arizona. He told how, when the migrant workers got hungry, they’d cut part of the (lower) stalk, peel it with a pocketknife, and munch on it as they worked. Then he did it, showed our 4 yr old (now 27 ) how sweet, juicy and delicious it is. She called it veggie candy. She still adores broccoli and still checks to make sure I use the stems!
I love the broccoli snacking story! The stalks can be tough, just depends on what you have – if especially tough/thick, it also helps to peel off that outer layer with a vegetable peeler. But if they’re super fresh and tender, yes, just include them!
OHMYGOSH! This might be the best soup I have ever had, and that is saying something because I love to cook and I love soup! Yes, it is almost 90 degrees today, so why am I making soup? Because I had the ingredients in the house, and I wasn’t in the mood for broccoli/cauliflower salad, again. And this recipe looked so enticing. Worth all the time and steps involved, trust me! Thanks for the fantastic recipe! (PS. I only had medium cheddar on hand; I am afraid of how much better this will be with sharp cheddar; I may eat the whole pan at one sitting, )
I’m so happy you liked this soup! Thanks for coming back to let me know. :)
If you need me, I’ll be in soup heaven…. *drool*!
I really loved this recipe! Thank you so much for sharing! Nice creamy, rich flavour – I added a dash of cayenne and served mine with a dollop of sour cream then sprinkled the cheddar, bacon and green onions on top.
The only draw back to me was that I felt the recipe was a little involved in that it wasn’t a “3 step easy” process, but maybe that was exacerbated by the fact that I was starving. Either way, still very much appreciate you creating this for us and it was truly delish! Def recommend! :)
Hello Brooke – I’m so glad you liked this soup. And I love the cayenne you added! The recipe is a bit more involved, with getting all the extra veggies in their smoothed out with the blender. But it’s so very good – and if I can win my oldest daughter over with a soup recipe, I definitely call it a win!! Thank you so much for coming back to comment – have a great day!
Made this soup today. I did add the broccoli stems and used evaporated milk instead of half and half. Turned out very flavorful and hearty. Great recipe!
YAY! I’m so glad you liked this soup – thanks for coming back to let me know!