Healthy Broccoli Soup
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Healthy Broccoli Soup is a delicious, cozy meal. Easy to make in the instant pot, crockpot, or on the stove – this broccoli cheddar soup is a must make! Gluten free and easily made dairy free, this creamy soup is seriously yummy!
Introducing the most delicious, healthy broccoli soup with a creamy texture! It quickly has become a favorite in our house, right next to Chicken Pot Pie Soup and Healthy Potato Soup.
This healthy broccoli soup is one of those recipes that feels indulgent, but is actually made with wholesome ingredients that are lower in fat and sodium (getting most of its creaminess from potatoes and veggies), yet still so delicious. It only has ½ cup of milk—no heavy cream needed, it’s packed with veggies (at least one serving per bowl!), and easily customizable.
You can make it on the stove, in the crockpot, or in the instant pot – but the instant pot is our favorite; it’s the quickest way (less than 20 mins start to finish!) and is pretty hands off. This soup is nearly impossible to mess up.. it doesn’t matter if you over cook it, because it all gets blended up!
This is a great alternative to Panera’s broccoli cheddar soup, and we know you will enjoy it!
Liz’s tips for healthy broccoli soup
- Grate your cheese! Pre-shredded cheese is coated in anti-caking agents that prevent it from melting well and can make your soup gritty. It’s best to buy a block of cheese and grate it fresh.
- Use an immersion blender for easy blending, or check out all our tips below for using a stand blender.
Ingredients
Substitutions
Oil: You can use coconut or avocado oil in place of olive oil
Veggies: Feel free to add in more carrots, celery or onion to this!
Broth: Use vegetable broth to make this vegetarian or bone broth if you’d like! I love using our Instant Pot Bone Broth or Crockpot Bone Broth in this because it’s so rich!
Dairy Free: I haven’t tested this recipe with dairy free cheese but I think it would work. You can sub in any non dairy milk. I tested almond milk in this recipe and found no difference in terms of taste/texture.
Cheese: Feel free to use whatever cheese you like. I prefer cheddar, gruyere, colby jack, fontina, or gouda, but other shredded cheese will work. Make sure to buy a block of cheese and grate it yourself for best results!
Milk: You can use pretty much any milk in this soup. I tested it with coconut cream, almond milk and whole milk. All were delicious. If you’re looking for a lower fat option, use lower fat milk or almond milk. If you want a richer soup, use heavy cream or coconut cream.
Potatoes: Do not use red skinned potatoes. These have less starch and will make your soup more watery. Use yukon gold or russet potatoes, as the starch is what helps with thickening. If you have sweet potatoes, try our Sweet Potato Soup.
Thickness: This soup is not the thick gravy like soup you’d get at Panera in the bread bowl, but it does get thicker as it cools/sets.
Sodium: If you’re looking to reduce sodium, omit the salt and use a salt-free broth. The nutrition facts reflect using a salt free broth.
Spices: Try this Curried Cauliflower and Broccoli Soup if you’re looking to amp up the flavor!
Keto: I have not tried subbing the potato for cauliflower, but I think it would work. You could also try our Cauliflower Soup.
Lower fat: Use almond milk or lower fat milk. You can use lower fat cheese but I think it affects the flavor/taste.
Paleo/Whole30: You can use almond milk and omit the cheese to make this paleo/Whole30 friendly.
How to make Broccoli Potato Cheese Soup in the instant pot
- In a large pot, heat olive oil. Sauté carrots, celery, onion, and garlic for 2 minutes until slightly softened and fragrant. Stir in the potatoes, salt, pepper, broccoli (including broccoli stems) and chicken broth.
- Bring to a boil and cook on high for 20-30 minutes, until broccoli + potatoes are fork tender.
- Once cooked, add milk and puree the soup using an immersion blender or spoon it into a regular blender. If you use a regular blender be very careful blending hot liquids and remember to vent the blender well.
- You can leave the soup as chunky as you like it or puree it entirely.
- Once blended stir in the cheese adding it about a quarter of a cup at a time while stirring to avoid it clumping together.
- Garnish with extra cheese, bacon and scallions and serve.
Tips for blending hot soup:
You can blend this soup with an immersion blender, regular blender, or even a food processor.
Make sure to be very careful when blending soup in a regular blender. If you are blending hot soup, it can lead the blender to steam up or build pressure which can result in the top popping off.
To avoid that, here are our tips for blending hot soup in a regular blender.
Allow the soup to cool for a few minutes if you can. It’s best not to take this right off the stove/instant pot/crockpot and put it in the blender. Give it a few minutes uncovered/off heat to release some steam.
Blend the soup in batches. It’s probably best to divide this in half and blend it 1/2 the batch at a time. By doing this you’re leaving room in the blender for the soup to move around.
Remove the center cover from the blender and cover with a towel instead. Most blender tops have a removable plastic piece in the center. Take this center piece out and put a clean dish towel over the opening while blending. (You don’t want soup on the ceiling!). Doing this allows the steam to vent out and prevents pressure from building up in the blender. Make sure to hold your hand over the dish towel to avoid it from moving/splattering.
FAQs
Broccoli Cheese soup will naturally separate as it cools. To prevent it just warm the soup and stir vigorously.
You can thicken broccoli cheese soup by adding in a little bit of flour or 1/2 teaspoon corn starch.
How to serve this soup
We like to top ours with scallions and extra cheese, but you can also top with bacon, homemade croutons.. the options are endless 🙂
Serve with a sandwich or an apple salad.
Storage options
Can you freeze broccoli soup? Yes you can! Place in freezer safe container. I love these containers for freezing leftovers! When you’re ready to eat – defrost in the refrigerator the night before, or heat in microwave from frozen or on the stove.
We have more tips on how to freeze soup!
Storing: This will last in the refrigerator for up to 4 days in an airtight container
Freezing: You can freeze this recipe for up to 6 months. We like these containers for freezing !
Reheating: You can reheat this recipe in the microwave, toaster oven, oven or on the stove.
More Healthy Soup Recipes:
Looking for other soup recipes? Check out these 40+ Healthy Soup Recipes. Click here to grab our free healthy soup cookbook.
Healthy Broccoli Soup
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 cup carrots diced
- 1/2 cup celery diced
- 1/2 cup onion diced
- 2 teaspoons garlic minced
- 3 cups broccoli florets about ½ lb
- 2 cups yukon gold potatoes peeled and diced into 2 inch pieces (about ½ lb)
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 3 cups chicken broth low or no salt
- 1/2 cup milk dairy or nondairy will work
- 1.5 cups colby jack cheese grated (highly recommend grating yourself to avoid grittiness from stabilizers in pre grated cheese)
Optional:
- scallion, bacon, cheese for garnish
Instructions
Instant Pot Instructions
- Start your instant pot on the regular sauté function. Heat olive oil. Add in the carrots, celery, onion and garlic. Sauté for 2 minutes. Add in the potatoes, salt, black pepper, broccoli and chicken broth.
- Turn the Instant Pot to High Pressure (Manual on older models) and set time for 3 minutes.
- When finished, quick release the steam. Add milk and puree the soup using an immersion blender or spoon it into a regular blender. If you use a regular blender be very careful blending hot liquids and remember to vent the blender well. You can leave the soup as chunky as you like it or puree it to a smooth consistency.
- Once blended stir in the cheese adding it about a quarter of a cup at a time while stirring to avoid it clumping together.
- Garnish with extra cheese, bacon and scallions and serve.
Crockpot Instructions
- In a saute pan, heat olive oil. Add in the carrots, celery, onion and garlic. Sauté for 2 minutes until slightly softened and fragrant. (This is optional, but recommended)
- Add sautéd veggies to the crockpot. Stir in the potatoes, salt, black pepper, broccoli and chicken broth.
- Set the crockpot to low for 6 hours or high for 4 hours.
- Add milk and puree the soup using an immersion blender or spoon it into a regular blender. If you use a regular blender be very careful blending hot liquids and remember to vent the blender well. You can leave the soup as chunky as you like it or puree it to a smooth consistency.
- Once blended stir in the cheese adding it about a quarter of a cup at a time while stirring to avoid it clumping together.
- Garnish with extra cheese, bacon and scallions and serve.
Stove Top Instructions
- In a large pot, heat olive oil. Add in the carrots, celery, onion and garlic. Sauté for 2 minutes until slightly softened and fragrant.
- Stir in the potatoes, salt, pepper, broccoli and chicken broth.
- Bring to a boil and cook on high for 20-30 minutes, until broccoli + potatoes are fork tender.
- Once cooked, add milk and puree the soup using an immersion blender or spoon it into a regular blender. If you use a regular blender be very careful blending hot liquids and remember to vent the blender well. You can leave the soup as chunky as you like it or puree it to a smooth consistency.
- Once blended stir in the cheese adding it about a quarter of a cup at a time while stirring to avoid it clumping together.
- Garnish with extra cheese, bacon and scallions and serve.
I love a good cream of broccoli soup but I don’t care for cheese in it. Should I make any changes if I am omitting the cheese?
The cheese is part of what makes it creamy, and also adds saltiness. You can make it without the cheese and taste and adjust to your preferences 🙂
So delicious!! Made for my daughter cause she had her wisdom teeth taken out and soup is her favorite type of food !!! Even my picky eaters ate every last bit !!! Definitely a family favorite now!!! Thank you for all your recipes and all that you do !!!
Oh my. This is hands down the best broccoli-cheddar soup I have ever tasted. I enjoy prepping and this required some time but so worth it. I ended up adding extra broth and milk as the veggies absorbed a lot of the liquid. I sprinkled a little extra cheese and some red pepper flakes on top of my bowl. I plan on trying your other recipes – Feel very lucky to have found you.
Absolutely delicious!! Best broccoli soup recipe I’ve ever made. I love that it’s so light and creamy! I also added some fresh cauliflower that I needed to use with one potato as a thickener. Thanks for sharing!!
I love this soup because it is so simple and extremely delicious. The combination of veggies so much nutrition all in one place! At this point most of everything I make is from the Clean Eating Couple.
They are the best!
Looks good but how is this considered healthy? Loaded with fat,saturated fat and sodium.
It is healthier that many other broccoli cheddar soups because they are typically loaded with lots of funky ingredients, heavy cream and loads of cheese. This soup has just enough cheese to add the flavor, but only 1.5 cups for 4 servings!
It was great I was very surprised how good it tasted my Husband also enjoyed
I made this and subbed riced cauliflower for the potato and added some thyme. It was delicious!
Woooowwwww! I had a bunch of veggies that were slightly past their prime and I looked for a broccoli soup but I’ve been eating clean and have some food sensitivities so it’s hard to find recipes that work. I used about half the cheese, coconut milk with more of the cream than water, and added nutritional yeast to up the cheesy factor without more dairy. Absolutely delicious and doesn’t feel like I’m eating a ton of veggies! (I did add bacon so I’m sure that helped!). Thanks! I’ll be looking through more of your recipes!
I loved it. I added a little paprika after it was cooked. It was so good without it too. I like that it’s all blended so my son will like it too. Thank you for sharing your recipe.
Has anyone used a stronger cheese like sharp cheddar? How was it?
I’m sure that would be fine
My family and I tried this recipe out last night and enjoyed it SO MUCH!
My husband is GF and our family has recently gone “refined sugar free”. So the fact that this soup doesn’t call for flour was a reason we tried it. I did the stove top version and found it wonderfully easy to execute.
Thanks so much for providing a YUMMY HEALTHY recipe for this Broccoi Cheese Soup!
This soup looks and sounds delicious. I’m trying to use up Stuff in my fridge before we go away. So my question, do you think it would freeze ok.
Love the substitution on cauliflower for potatoes especially because I have that to use up too!!
There’s a whole section in every one of our posts about storage! Pasting it below: Yes you can! Place in freezer safe container. I love Souper Cubes for freezing soup. Code CLEANEATINGCOUPLE works to save $$! When you’re ready to eat – defrost in the refrigerator the night before, or heat in microwave from frozen or on the stove.
My husband didn’t want to cook the frozen broccoli we had in the freezer. Up to him, it would sit in the freezer for another year and then hit the trash. I googled broccoli soup and found this recipe and made it within eeeeh 30-40 minutes. We had everything but carrot so I just used more sweet potato (oh yeah, we sub’d sweet potato) and it was SO GOOD! my 5 and 3 year old ate it up, and the only thing is, we should’ve made more bacon 😉 I’m here to print the recipe to add to very few recipes that I actually cook.
I’m rating this for my grandson who is one. He loves this soup and yells if your not feeding it to him fast enough! I chop the veggies smaller and add 1/2 of the cheese. We freeze it in small containers for him and even after freezing it still tastes great!
Love this soup. I had to do a little substituting due to circumstances.
Added a little cauliflower as I didn’t have enough broccoli and no celery so substituted with green beans.
I used low fat cream cheese instead of cheese and milk.
Absolutely delicious 😋 Thank you for sharing your recipes . I look forward to trying more.
I’ve been suffering from ulcerative colitis for quite some time. I decided to give this recipe a shot. It is super easy to prepare. Best of all, it is DELICIOUS! It seems to agree with my stomach. This recipe is a keeper. Thanks.
This was delicious. I made it vegan. I used almond milk and cauliflower instead of potatoes. Am definitely going to make more again soon. Thank you!
So easy and so good!
I used oat milk and did a taste test prior to adding low fat cheese. It would’ve been great even without the cheese! May leave it out next time to save calories and fat. I made it on the stove top, and the broccoli and diced potatoes were cooked after about 15 minutes.
So glad you liked it! I definitely don’t recommend leaving out the cheese – it helps it get so creamy and delicious!