Broccoli Cheddar Soup

When in the mood for a cheesy comforting soup, I decided to make Broccoli Cheddar Soup. It has cheese AND vegetables! What could be better?!

I was inspired to make this soup after a trip to Panera with my brother. He always gets broccoli cheddar soup in a bread bowl. I had a bite of his soup and it was quite tasty. Instead of trying to find a Panera copycat recipe, I did a quick google search. The first recipe that came up was a food network recipe, so I was sold. It was titled “Almost Famous Broccoli-Cheddar Soup” and after reading the title, my mouth began to water.

At this point, the soup was still cooking. After this picture was taken, I used an immersion blender to blend everything to a silky smooth texture. You can also blend it in a blender in small batches if you don’t have an immersion blender.

Almost ready to put the finishing touches on the soup.

Time to pour in the cheese. Don’t worry, I didn’t skimp on the cheese. This picture was taken after already pouring in some cheese and whisking it in!

I ended up adding some cayenne pepper and extra black pepper to the finished product to give it a bit more zip! Unfortunately, I didn’t have sourdough bread bowls, but I did have sourdough bread. My husband has been buying multi-grain sourdough bread from Trader Joe’s recently and let me tell you, it’s one of the best breads I’ve ever tasted! It also has very few ingredients (read: fresh and containing no preservatives or additives). Pick up a similar bread at the grocery store and it’ll contain weird ingredients you never knew they put in bread! But, I digress…

We served the finished product with the multi-grain sourdough bread and it was delicious. The recipe makes a fairly large amount of soup, but it was so good that we finished in the next day.

I give the finished product 5 stars! Here’s the link to the recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/almost-famous-broccoli-cheddar-soup-recipe.html