Easy to make Broccoli Cheese Baked Potatoes make a delicious and easy meatless meal your family will love. Super easy to prep these baked potatoes with roasted broccoli and a quick 10 minute cheese sauce is a dinner you will be making regularly!
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Broccoli And Cheese Stuffed Baked Potatoes
You all have to put up with a very brief personal story about broccoli cheese baked potatoes from me for just a sec.
When I was pregnant with my oldest my first trimester was nightmare. Sick all the time, no energy, weird food cravings. You see where this is going?
At the time we lived in Columbus Ohio which happens the be the headquarters of the restaurant chain Wendy’s, so naturally the metro area of Columbus was full of Wendy’s, there seemed to be one on every corner.
Now Wendy’s might be the only fast food to carry baked potatoes on their menu, correct me if I am wrong. And during that first rough pregnancy Wendy’s Broccoli and Cheese Baked Potatoes were MY LIFE.
It is all I ever wanted. Matt will even tell you this ‘cute’ little antidote about that one time he accidentally drove past a Wendy’s without stopping to get me a Broccoli and Cheese Potato and I STARTED CRYING. Pregnancy hormones man…
Now to this day a good Broccoli Cheese Potato is still something I crave quite frequently. And in the last 5 years since my early pregnancy cravings I have become really good at making them at home.
So for you lucky folks I finally actually wrote down the recipe and I am sharing it with you today.
Now you don’t have to be obsessed with baked potatoes like me, but I am pretty confident your family with love this meal and you will love how easy it is to make!
Ingredients:
A few simple things needed for these potatoes:
- Russet Potatoes: When shopping try to get the potatoes all the same size so they all cook evenly. The nice thing about the recipe is you can scale it really easy, so if you want s few extra potatoes (or less) you can totally do that.
- Broccoli: The most common form of broccoli is see in stores is the crowns, so grab a few crowns, or a large head and cut it into bite sized florets. Or just grab a bag or two of the pre-cut florets!
- Olive Oil: You can use really use any oil you like here but I like the taste of olive oil on my potatoes. The oil is used for the vegetables for the oven for cooking, it keeps the outside of the baked potatoes crispy!
- Butter: Preferably unsalted but if you only have salted, use less salt for the sauce. You will use the butter as part of a Roux to make the cheese sauce.
- Flour: The thickening agent for the cheese sauce, you will mix the flour and butter together to make the roux and then add the cheese.
- Milk: A main component of the cheese sauce. I used whole milk but any variety should do.
- Spices: Paprika and Salt. Just a little bit of each.
- Cheddar Cheese: Freshly Shredded, the sauce will be much more creamy if you shred your own cheese from a block. As far as variety of cheddars choose the one that suites you, for the most classic version use a mild cheddar cheese, but if you like the sharp varieties use that!
Instructions for Broccoli and Cheese Stuffed Baked Potatoes:
Preheat oven to 400ºF. Clean potatoes. Carefully with a fork poke little holes all over each of the potatoes, about 9-12 times, this lets stem escape from the potatoes.
Using about 1 ½ tablespoons of the olive oil, rub oil all over the potatoes until covered. Arrange potatoes on a sheet pan, season with salt and pepper. Transfer to the oven and bake 45 minutes.
Just before the 45 minutes are up toss the broccoli florets in the remaining olive oil. When the time is up carefully add the broccoli florets to the sheet pan around the potatoes. Transfer back to the oven. Bake an additional 15 minutes or until potatoes are tender and broccoli is cooked.
While the sheet pan finishes cooking make the cheese sauce, you are basically making a roux and then adding the cheese.
In a medium saucepan add the butter and bring over medium heat. Melt the butter, once the butter starts to bubble add the flour and whisk together, it okay if it is clumpy.
Very slowly add about 1/4 of the milk to the saucepan, whisk together with the butter/flour mixture until smooth. It should start to thicken. Slowly whisk in the remaining milk, make sure there are no clumps of flour remaining. As the milk warms it should thicken, let it continue to heat up, stirring every so often until the milk is hot and starts to steam. Do NOT let the milk boil, it can take about 6 to 8 minutes for the milk to heat up and start to thicken.
Once it has started to thicken stir in the paprika and salt.
Turn off the heat. Add half of the cheese to the top of the milk, let it begin to melt, 10 to 20 seconds then whisk in until combined. Repeat with the rest of the cheese to finish making your cheese sauce.
To serve, slice open the potatoes, add broccoli to the middle and drizzle with the cheese sauce. Eat immediately.
Tips & Tricks:
- For a better sauce use fresh shredded cheese from a block instead of pre-shredded cheese, but the pre-shredded cheese can work if needed, it just might take longer for it to melt into the sauce.
- You can scale this recipe as needed. Love the cheese, double the sauce! Make more or less potatoes as needed. You can even add in more veggies if you like, I think cauliflower and carrot are a good addition to the broccoli.
- You can honestly make this recipe about 15 different methods. In a hurry, use your pressure cooker to make the potatoes and quickly steam the broccoli while making the cheese. Feel free to mircowave your potatoes and broccoli if needed. I have used many different methods to make this but this is the one I find EASIEST with time permitting.
- If you have leftover cheese sauce it definitely can be refrigerated but it will thicken A LOT, when you reheat it the sauce will thin out again.
Other recipes you may like:
- How to make Perfect Baked Potatoes in the Oven
- Pressure Cooker Baked Potatoes
- Spinach Mushroom Stuffed Baked Potatoes with Cheddar
- Rueben Stuffed Baked Potatoes
- Simple Spinach Side Salad
- Or just check out more of my Meatless Meal Here
Yield: 4 servings
Broccoli Cheese Baked Potatoes
Easy to make baked potatoes with roasted broccoli and a quick 10 minute cheese sauce that makes the perfect weeknight dinner!
Prep Time5 minutes
Cook Time1 hour
Total Time1 hour 5 minutes
Ingredients
- 4 russet potatoes
- 2 broccoli crowns, cut into florets
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
for the cheese sauce:
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 tablespoon flour
- 1 cup milk
- dash paprika, about 1/8 teaspoon
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup cheddar cheese, freshly shredded
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400ºF. Clean potatoes. Carefully with a fork poke little holes all over each of the potatoes, about 9-12 times, this lets stem escape from the potatoes.
- Using about 1 ½ tablespoons of the olive oil, rub oil all over the potatoes until covered. Arrange potatoes on a sheet pan, season with salt and pepper. Transfer to the oven and bake 45 minutes.
- Just before the 45 minutes are up toss the broccoli florets in the remaining olive oil. When the time is up carefully add the broccoli florets to the sheet pan around the potatoes. Transfer back to the oven. Bake an additional 15 minutes or until potatoes are tender and broccoli is cooked.
- While the sheet pan finishes cooking make the cheese sauce, you are basically making a roux and then adding the cheese. In a medium saucepan add the butter and bring over medium heat. Melt the butter, once the butter starts to bubble add the flour and whisk together, it okay if it is clumpy.
- Very slowly add about 1/4 of the milk to the saucepan, whisk together with the butter/flour mixture until smooth. It should start to thicken. Slowly whisk in the remaining milk, make sure there are no clumps of flour remaining.
- As the milk warms it should thicken, let it continue to heat up, stirring every so often until the milk is hot and starts to steam. Do NOT let the milk boil, it can take about 6 to 8 minutes for the milk to heat up and start to thicken. Once it has started to thicken stir in the paprika and salt.
- Turn off the heat. Add half of the cheese to the top of the milk, let it begin to melt, 10 to 20 seconds then whisk in until combined. Repeat with the rest of the cheese to finish making your cheese sauce.
- To serve, slice open the potatoes, add broccoli to the middle and drizzle with the cheese sauce. Eat immediately.
Notes
For a better sauce use fresh shredded cheese from a block instead of pre-shredded cheese, but the pre-shredded cheese can work if needed, it just might take longer for it to melt into the sauce.
You can scale this recipe as needed. Love the cheese, double the sauce! Make more or less potatoes as needed. You can even add in more veggies if you like, i think cauliflower and carrot are a good addition to the broccoli.
You can honestly make this recipe about 15 different methods. In a hurry, use your pressure cooker to make the potatoes and quickly steam the broccoli while making the cheese. Feel free to mircowave your poatoes and broccoli if needed. I have used many different methods to make this but this is the one I find EASIEST with time permitting.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
4Serving Size:
1
Amount Per Serving:Calories: 422Total Fat: 21gSaturated Fat: 9gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 10gCholesterol: 43mgSodium: 419mgCarbohydrates: 44gFiber: 5gSugar: 2gProtein: 14g
Nutritional data is automated, final nutritional information will depend on ingredients used and any changes made.
