Easy Broccoli Cheese Casserole

This Easy Broccoli Cheese Casserole comes together quickly with a few flavorful ingredients to make a creamy and cheesy casserole with a crunchy topping.

What Ingredients Do I Need?

This is really simple to make. All it takes is some butter, onion, flour, cream of chicken soup, and milk for the creamy base.

The rest of the casserole comes together with fresh broccoli florets, Cheddar cheese, and some panko breadcrumbs. They’re the best for adding crunch. If you love a classic Ritz cracker topping, you could substitute crushed crackers, but I like the light crunch of the panko for this broccoli casserole.

My Easy Hashbrown Casserole recipe is a great one to use a Ritz cracker topping on though. So good!

How To Make Broccoli Cheese Casserole

First, if you’re going to be baking it right away, get your oven preheated to 350°F.

Next, you’ll melt butter in a large skillet and cook your diced onion until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the salt, pepper, and flour and cook for 3 minutes to cook out the raw flour taste.

Add the milk and cream of chicken soup (homemade or canned) and stir well. Once you’ve added in the milk and soup, turn the heat to low. Remove the florets from the fresh head of broccoli and give them a chop into bite-sized pieces and grate the sharp Cheddar cheese.

Stir the chopped broccoli florets and about 2/3 of the cheese into the pan and stir until everything is coated. The rest of the cheese is for the topping.

Pour your broccoli mixture into a 9×13 inch baking dish. Top with the panko breadcrumbs and the remaining cheese. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the casserole is bubbling and golden.

Substitutions For Canned Soup

If you don’t want to use the canned condensed soup to make this recipe, no problem. You can use a Velouté Sauce instead. This is essentially a Béchamel Sauce made using stock instead of milk or cream. It will give your dish the nice chickeny flavor that you want.

You’ll need 2 and 1/2 cups of the sauce. Use the Velouté Sauce recipe here, but use 4 tablespoons of butter, 4 tablespoons of flour, and 2 and 2 and 1/2 cups of chicken stock or broth.

Make It In Advance

Want to prep the casserole earlier in the day or the day before you’ll be eating it? After you assemble it, let it cool, cover, and refrigerate. You’ll also want to wait to sprinkle on the topping until it’s ready to go in the oven.

This is one of those side dishes that you will see people coming up for seconds, AND thirds.

Want more recipes that have that amazing flavor combination of broccoli and cheese? Try my Broccoli Cheese Soup that uses frozen broccoli to make things even easier for you!

More Easy Casserole Recipes

This post originally appeared in October 2018 and was revised and republished in November 2023.