Healthy broccoli cheddar soup, and what Panera's bowl really costs
Panera's bowl is 360 calories with 1,330 mg of sodium by its own figures. This one is about 335 calories with 17 g of protein and about half the sodium.
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Ingredients
- 16 g unsalted butter Out of butter?
- 120 g onion, finely chopped
- 100 g carrot, finely diced or grated
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 24 g all-purpose flour, plain flour in the UK
- 600 ml reduced-sodium chicken stock, or vegetable stock Out of chicken broth or stock?
- 360 ml 2% milk, semi-skimmed in the UK
- 480 g broccoli, florets and peeled stems, chopped small
- 56 g cream cheese Out of cream cheese?
- 112 g sharp cheddar, mature cheddar in the UK, grated from a block
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
Method
- Melt the butter in a large pan over a medium heat. Add the onion and carrot and cook for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring now and then, until soft but not coloured. Add the garlic for the last 30 seconds.
- Stir in the flour and cook it for a minute, until it smells toasted rather than raw.
- Pour in the stock a little at a time, whisking after each addition so no lumps form, then whisk in the milk the same way. Bring it to a gentle simmer.
- Add the broccoli and simmer for 8 to 10 minutes, until a knife slides into a piece of stem. Keep it at a bare simmer from here: milk boiled hard catches on the bottom of the pan.
- For a thicker, smoother soup, blend about a third of it with a stick blender and leave the rest chunky. Skip this if you like it brothy.
- Take the pan off the heat. Stir in the cream cheese until it melts, then the cheddar a handful at a time, letting each one melt before the next, then the mustard, a grating of nutmeg and plenty of black pepper. Taste before adding any salt: the stock and the cheese have already brought plenty.
- Serve straight away. If it thickens as it stands, loosen it with a splash of stock or milk over a low heat.
Panera’s broccoli cheddar soup is not a calorie problem. By its own figures a bowl is 360 calories, which is a fair lunch. It is 1,330 mg of sodium, more than half the 2,300 mg daily value on a US label. This version is about 335 calories with 17 g of protein and about 690 mg of sodium, made with reduced-sodium stock.
The cottage cheese swap below takes it to 300 calories. A bowl here is about 1 2/3 cups, a little more than Panera’s 1 1/2.
Is broccoli cheddar soup healthy?
It is a cheese soup, so it will never be a light one, and it does not need to be. The number worth watching is sodium. Per bowl, by our estimate for this recipe and Panera’s nutrition guide for theirs.
| Per bowl | kcal | Protein | Fat | Sodium |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Panera, 1 1/2 cups | 360 | 14 g | 21 g | 1,330 mg |
| This one, as written | 335 | 17 g | 20 g | about 690 mg |
| This one, with the cottage cheese swap | 300 | 18 g | 16 g | about 690 mg |
| Panera, in a bread bowl | 890 | 32 g | 16 g | 2,180 mg |
The bread bowl is the line that changes the answer. The soup is a reasonable lunch; the bread it comes in is a second one.
Our sodium figure counts no added salt, and it assumes reduced-sodium stock. Both are choices you make at the stove, which is the point of making it yourself.
Where the sodium comes from
Mostly two places: the stock and the cheese. Per bowl, by USDA values:
| Source | Sodium |
|---|---|
| Reduced-sodium chicken stock, 150 ml | about 350 mg |
| Regular chicken stock, 150 ml | about 560 mg |
| Sharp cheddar, 28 g | about 180 mg |
| Everything else together | about 160 mg |
Regular stock takes the bowl to about 900 mg. The cheddar you cannot cut much without losing the soup, which is why a sharp, well-aged one matters: it carries more flavour per gram, so 28 g tastes like more.
Healthy broccoli cheddar soup without cream
This one has none. Its body comes from a spoon of flour cooked in butter, the old roux, and milk rather than cream, with a small amount of cream cheese for silkiness. Blending a third of the soup thickens it further without adding anything at all.
The reason most restaurant-style versions reach for cream is that cream forgives: its fat protects the cheese from splitting. Milk does not, so the cheese has to go in off the heat, a handful at a time. That is the whole technique, and the pasta sauce without heavy cream guide explains why it works.
What is the secret ingredient in broccoli cheddar soup?
There is not one, whatever a copycat recipe promises. Three things make it taste like the one you remember: a genuinely sharp cheddar, a little mustard, which makes the cheese taste more of itself without tasting of mustard, and a grating of nutmeg. The real secret is technique. Cheese added over the heat turns grainy, and no ingredient fixes that afterwards.
High protein broccoli cheddar soup with cottage cheese
The swap on this page adds about 1 g of protein, because it only replaces 14 g of cream cheese. The version doing the rounds online goes further: blend about 100 g of cottage cheese per bowl completely smooth and stir it in off the heat. That takes a bowl to about 28 g of protein, at a cost of about 98 calories and 315 mg of sodium, by USDA values.
It works, with two cautions. Cottage cheese thickens the soup, so leave out a little of the flour if you go this way. And it splits if it boils, exactly like the cheddar, which the cottage cheese pasta sauce covers in detail.
Is broccoli cheddar soup low carb?
Lower than most soups, but not low carb. A bowl carries about 25 g of carbohydrate. Leaving out the flour and the carrot takes it to about 18 g, and the blended third of the soup then does the thickening. The broccoli and the milk carry the rest, and they are the soup.
Where the calories are
Per bowl, which is a quarter of the pan.
| Part of the bowl | kcal | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cheddar, 28 g | 114 | 6 g | 1 g | 10 g |
| Butter and flour | 51 | 1 g | 4 g | 3 g |
| Cream cheese, 14 g | 49 | 1 g | 1 g | 5 g |
| Milk, 90 ml | 45 | 3 g | 4 g | 2 g |
| Broccoli, 120 g | 41 | 3 g | 8 g | 0 g |
| Onion, carrot and garlic | 24 | 1 g | 6 g | 0 g |
| Stock and mustard | 11 | 2 g | 1 g | 0 g |
| Per serving | 335 | 17 g | 25 g | 20 g |
The cheddar is a third of the calories and half the fat, and it is the one line this page leaves alone. The broccoli, the thing the soup is named after, is 41.
The swap, and what it is worth
| Swap | kcal | Protein | Carbs | Fat | Running total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cream cheese to blended cottage cheese | −35 | +1 g | 0 g | −4 g | 300 kcal, 18 g protein |
Blend the cottage cheese until it is glossy, not just broken up, and stir it in where the cream cheese goes, off the heat.
What goes wrong
A grainy soup. The cheese went in over the heat, or the soup boiled after it went in. Heat squeezes the fat out of cheese and the proteins clump. Off the heat, a handful at a time, every time.
Cheese that will not melt smoothly. Pre-grated cheese is coated with starch to stop it clumping in the bag, and it melts less cleanly. Grate your own from a block.
Grey, sulphurous broccoli. It cooked too long. Eight to ten minutes at a simmer is enough; the stems should still resist a knife slightly when you take the pan off.
A soup that sets thick. Flour and cheese both keep thickening as the soup cools. Loosen it with stock rather than water, which dilutes the flavour.
Storing and reheating
Keep leftovers in the fridge for 3 to 4 days, the USDA guidance for leftovers. Reheat gently and do not let it boil, or it splits. It freezes badly once the cheese is in, so if you are cooking ahead, freeze the soup base after the broccoli has simmered, and add the cheeses when you reheat it.
Every figure here is an estimate from USDA values rather than a measurement, except Panera’s, which are its own published figures. Why recipe macros are estimates explains how far they move with what you buy.
Where next
Worth cooking next:
- High protein mac and cheese that is still just mac and cheeseClassic stovetop mac and cheese already carries about 31 g of protein a bowl, from the cheddar and the pasta. What chickpea pasta, cottage cheese and chicken add.
- Ground turkey chili that does not taste like it is missing somethingTurkey chili at 25 g protein a bowl, without the dryness turkey usually brings. Why you brown it in two batches and what replaces the fat you lost.
- Cottage cheese pasta sauce, blended properlyA creamy pasta sauce from cottage cheese at 29 g protein a plate. Why it splits in a hot pan, how to stop it, and the blending step nobody skips twice.
Cooking it as part of a week? ReciPop plans seven days of meals around the time you have, the appliances you own and how many you are feeding, then turns them into one grocery list sorted by aisle. How the weekly plan works