I came up with this recipe after poking through a bunch of other peoples’ recipes for broccoli casserole and never quite seeing exactly what I wanted. Now this is a fairly “chunky“casserole. I realize some people may like more smooth-textured casseroles, and so for those people I recommend chopping the broccoli up into small pieces and either cutting up the pearl onions or using diced sweet onion instead.
Ingredients:
- 1 bag of frozen broccoli (big but not “Costco Big”)
- 1 bag of frozen pearl onions (feel ‘em up to make sure they’re not totally huge—I’ve seen them the size of ping-pong balls and that is too big)
- 1 block of cream cheese
- 1 cup or so of sour cream
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- margarine/butter substitute
- 8oz bag (or larger) of grated cheese (I use the Mexican four cheese blend, but cheddar or anything like that is good.
- minced or diced garlic (the kind in a jar is best/easiest)
- salt, pepper (white pepper is best)
- canned bread crumbs (plain)
- tiny bit of flour
Instructions:
Heat oven to 350
In a huge pot, steam the broccoli and pearl onions for a while until they are not frozen but not mushy either.
While that is happening, melt a big blob of margarine in a large saucepan. 1/3 cup or so, but I never measure. I just honk a couple of big spoonfuls in there. Put the cream cheese in a bowl in the microwave and carefully microwave it until it’s soft. Chop it up first or you will get really uneven heating. You can skip this step, but it takes forever to melt it in the saucepan so I highly recommend it. Once that’s soft enough to stir, add it to the butter. Add the cream and sour cream and a tablespoon or two of garlic. Add salt and pepper. Stir that all together for a while until it’s starting to bubble a little and starts to thicken.
Drain the broccoli and onions and put them back in the pot.
Sprinkle about 2 tbsp of flour into the sauce it and stir quickly before it gets lumpy. This will thicken it… once that happens, stir it into the broccoli/onions. Dump in the cheese and stir that. It will start to melt pretty quickly.
Sprinkle some breadcrumbs in the bottom of the casserole pan so they just cover it. In a bowl, take about a cup of breadcrumbs and mix melted butter/margarine into them with a fork until the breadcrumbs are all moist. I start with about 1/4 cup of margarine, melted, poured over it… and then add a little more if needed… you can always add more breadcrumbs if you get too much butter.
Dump all the broccoli/onion/sauce/cheese into the casserole pan on top of the dry breadcrumbs and smooth it down as evenly as possible. Use a fork to spread the butter/breadcrumbs over the top of that evenly. Cover with aluminum foil, bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 5 minutes or so.
It’s done, but needs at least 15 minutes to cool before being served, unless you are exceptionally brave. In fact, for best results, make it several hours in advance, or the day before, and chill thoroughly in the refrigerator. Cut pieces while cold, and reheat in the microwave. It will hold its shape better this way (as will many casseroles) and won’t fall apart as you try to serve it.
— 08:48:43 AM
[2116]
