Food Network
The bakery-café chain Panera Bread is famous for its bread bowls, but insiders know that the real treat is the stuff inside. The company’s broccoli-cheddar soup practically has a cult following, which explains why Betty Ling from Arcadia, CA, and other readers keep writing to us for the recipe. Spokespeople at Panera’s Missouri headquarters wouldn’t tell us how they make the extra-creamy soup, but they did confirm that it’s a bestseller: Their stores ladle out more than 50 million cups of it every year, blowing through five million heads of broccoli in the process. Chefs in Food Network Kitchens went through their own big batch of broccoli to nail down this perfect imitation.
