Recipe: Easy Homemade Broccoli Cheese Sauce

I whipped this together the other night when I needed a quick dinner before book club. I had some left over broccoli from making Cheesy Cream of Broccoli Soup with Bacon and some left over heavy cream and cheeses from a Baked Ziti recipe I'll be posting soon. 

This pic is actually the leftover sauce that I ate tonight :)

This is a super easy sauce that whips up really quickly and is so good that I literally kept eating it with a spoon while I waited for my baked potatoes to finish cooking. Enjoy!

Start by chopping up the broccoli, boiling the broccoli steaming water, and melting the butter.  Finish chopping the broccoli and get it steaming before you add the flour to the butter, otherwise, you will be trying to stir your roux and chop broccoli and then add cream before the roux browns too much and then be stirring the white sauce so it doesn't burn while still trying to chop broccoli and your broccoli steaming water will be trying to boil out of the pan (no punctuation crazy sentence to reflect the real life craziness).  No good.

3 Cups???

 At this point the thought came to me that Talon, my 3 year old, hadn't gone to the bathroom for a while.  So in the midst of everything else, I ran into my bedroom where he was playing Sonic and found that he had peed right on my bed.  Awesome :| 

Phew, no lumps!

Once it is mixed together, you'll want to taste it...a bunch.  We like ours a little thick, but this would be the point to add milk a little at a time to the consistency you prefer.

Talon's baked potato with the cheese sauce.  He liked it!

 Ingredients:

3 Cups broccoli, chopped small

1/2 Cup water

1 teaspoon sea salt

3 Tablespoons butter

3 Tablespoons flour

1 1/2 Cups heavy cream

1 Cup cheddar cheese, shredded

1/2 Cup mozerella cheese, shredded

1/2 Cup parmesan cheese, shredded

Milk for consistency

 Start by chopping the broccoli into smaller pieces (little chopped stems work perfectly in this sauce).  Bring the water and sea salt to a boil in a medium/small pot with a lid.  Add the broccoli and stir until the water returns to a boil then turn the heat to low and cover.  Cook for 5 minutes and test softness.  (You could use frozen broccoli and follow the cooking directions on the package.)  Melt the butter in a medium/large pot.  Add the flour and stir until combined.  Bring temperature to medium high then add the cream and stir until it starts to bubble and thicken.  Turn the heat off and stir in the cheese.  Add the broccoli and any remaining cooking water to the sauce and stir it in.  This will make a fairly thick sauce so feel free, at this point, to add milk a bit at a time, if you would like your sauce a little more thin.  -Serves 4.

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