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| 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
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
Directions:
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