Healthy Broccoli Cheese Soup

This broccoli cheese soup is creamy, cheesy, and on the healthier side! Thickened with a potato, it does not contain heavy cream and is packed with healthy vegetables.

I am a sucker for a creamy, blended soup. From Thai curry sweet potato lentil soup to ultra creamy butternut squash soup, I love that they are creamy and hearty, yet full of healthy ingredients.

This broccoli cheese soup is one of my favorite soups on the blog! I love the classic broccoli cheese combo, it is quick to prepare, and freeze/thaws great.

Recipe video

Watch the video below to see how simple it is to make this soup! You can find more of my recipe videos on my YouTube channel, or on Facebook.

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Ingredient notes

• stock– feel free to use chicken or vegetable stock, or make your own bone broth
• potato– this recipe uses a white potato, and we don’t bother peeling. If using a red potato, you may want to peel (for looks, not for taste)
• milk– this recipe uses dairy milk, but it should work fine with unsweetened almond or nut milk
• cheese– cheddar or mozzarella are both great in this soup; for extra flavor, use an aged cheddar
• other– sometimes I add a carrot to the soup; peel + chop into small pieces

How to cook it

Prep before cooking

For the smoothest cooking experience, I recommend prepping your vegetables before you start cooking. Otherwise, it can get hectic to chop while cooking.

Cut the broccoli into 1-1.5 inch florets, slice the celery, mince the garlic, dice the onion and peel then cube the potato. You don't need to be precise with your cuts, as we will blend the soup up after cooking.

Building the flavor base

We start off by sautéing the onion in the olive oil to build the flavor base of the soup. This helps soften the onions while concentrating the natural sugars.

Next, we add in the garlic. Adding the garlic once the onion is mostly cooked through prevents it from burning. Allow it to simmer for 1 minute, until it smells fragrant. At this point, we deglaze the pan.

Deglazing + cooking

Deglazing the pan simply means to add liquid or stock to the pot, scraping up any bits that are stuck to the bottom. If you want maximum flavor in your soup, you definitely want those little bits of onion and garlic to be scraped up. Use a spatula or wooden spoon to do this.

After deglazing the pan, we add the celery, broccoli, potato cubes, salt, pepper and broth. The vegetables should be *just* covered. Cover and simmer until the veggies are soft, roughly 20 minutes.

Blending the soup

Once the veggies are softened, stir in the milk, then blend the soup. My favorite way to blend soups is using an immersion blender, because you can do it right in the pot!

If you have a stand blender, you can also carefully transfer the soup in batches to the stand blender and blend it up that way.

Once blended, stir in the cheese until melted, and serve!

I love this immersion blender.

Storage + Reheating

Here’s how to store broccoli cheese soup after cooking:

• Fridge– store in an air tight container for up to 4 days
• Freezer– freeze in a glass or plastic freezer jar for up to 3 months; make sure it is completely cooled before freezing
• Thaw– thaw for 48 hours in the fridge, or immerse the jar partially in cold water for a few hours to speed the process
• Reheat– heat on medium heat in a pot on the stove; stir occasionally until warmed through

Check out my favorite freezer containers.

Other cooking methods

Instant Pot- This soup can also be made in the Instant Pot; while it doesn't cut down on the cook time massively, it does mean that you don't need to watch for a pot to boil over, freeing up your mental energy 😉 Check out our Instant Pot broccoli cheese soup recipe.

Slow cooker- I believe this recipe would also work well in the slow cooker, though I have not yet had the chance to test it. Be careful to use the low heat and not to overcook the broccoli as I've found it to get a bitter taste when cooked to high/too long in the slow cooker. Check out this slow cooker broccoli turmeric soup and try the cook time suggested in that post.

More soup for you!

• Creamy Roasted Cauliflower Soup
• 36+ Healthy Soup Recipes
• Hearty Lentil Soup
• Spicy Caribbean-Inspired Soup
• Sausage and White Bean Soup
• Thai Butternut Squash Soup