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Broccoli cheese casserole is one of those side dishes that gets gobbled up every time. It’s so creamy, cheesy, and full of flavor. Even your picky eaters will devour this broccoli.
Would you believe that my parents never made me eat broccoli as a kid?
I honestly don’t think I ever even tasted broccoli until I was a teenager.
Which, hey, I’m not complaining. Broccoli was scary and green looking and I was super picky. My parents picked their battles.
But now? I LOVE broccoli. It’s probably my favorite veggie and I often eat it steamed with just a sprinkling of salt. No butter, no cheese, just good ol’ broccoli.
Sometimes, though, you’ve got to get a little fancy with your vegetables and that’s where this easy broccoli casserole comes into play.Y’all are going to love how cheesy and melty and flavorful this low carb broccoli casserole recipe is!
How to make broccoli casserole:
We’re starting with fresh broccoli for this recipe, because I personally find the frozen kind a bit icky. The texture is just all wrong for me.
Fresh is best when it comes to vegetables, right? 🙂
You’ll start out by steaming the broccoli lightly, either in a stove top steamer or in the microwave. For this recipe, I nearly always opt for the microwave, just because it’s easy.
Pop your broccoli into a large bowl with two tablespoons of water, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and microwave for 2 minutes.
The cheesy goodness that makes this broccoli cheese casserole recipe so good starts with cream cheese – my favorite food on the planet. 😉
You’ll mix together cream cheese, grated cheddar, garlic powder, salt, and pepper.
Scoop that mixture right on top of your hot and steamy broccoli and start stirring. The mixture should melt right into the broccoli pretty quickly as you stir.
Transfer this to a baking dish and sprinkle the top with Parmesan cheese.
Bake it up and you’ll have this decadent broccoli and cheese casserole that the whole family will love!
This easy broccoli casserole is ready to go in just about 20 minutes.
Serve alongside some grilled chicken or steak with a side of keto coleslaw!
If you love this keto broccoli casserole recipe, be sure to try my broccoli salad and cauliflower potato salad!
Broccoli Cheese Casserole
This low carb broccoli cheese casserole is ready in just about 20 minutes and is always a hit with my kids. Cheesy broccoli makes the perfect side to any grilled meat.
Ingredients
- 20 ounces fresh broccoli florets
- 8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
- ¼ cup mayonnaise
- 1 cup freshly grated cheddar cheese
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ cup grated Parmesan
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Add the broccoli to a large microwave safe bowl along with 2 tablespoons of water. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and microwave for 2 minutes. Let sit, covered, for 2 minutes.
- Add the cream cheese, mayonnaise, cheddar, garlic powder, salt, and pepper to a small bowl and mix well to combine.
- Stir the cream cheese mixture into the steamed broccoli until well combined.
- Transfer broccoli to an 8x8 baking dish and sprinkle the Parmesan over the top.
- Bake for 10 minutes.
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Nutrition Information
Yield 6 Serving Size 1Amount Per ServingCalories 323Total Fat 28gSaturated Fat 13gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 12gCholesterol 64mgSodium 502mgCarbohydrates 8gFiber 3gSugar 3gProtein 10g
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216 comments
Very excited to try your recipes. I’m lactose intolerant, I can substitute cheese no problem but what cream cheese should I use?
I’m not sure of a sub, but I do think there is a lactose free cream cheese on the market if you could find that. 🙂
All 32 oz of broccoli will fit in an 8×8 Pan? Just staring at my 8×8 & it seems small
The broccoli gets cooked a bit before going in the pan and it shrinks up. It should fit just fine. 🙂
I made this with a 32 oz bag of brocooli and I’m pretty sure you used a regular 16 oz bag for this recipe. Even after steaming, there was no way 32 oz of broccoli was going to fit in my 8×8 pan. It barely all fit in a 9×13. And, the cheesy part wasn’t nearly enough. There was LOTS of bare broccoli. I doubled that part of the recipe after I tried baking it as-is, and it’s still not as cheesy as we were actually wanting (for keto). A 32 oz bag of broccoli is the really big size at Costco or Sam’s Club; the regular size at grocery stores is 16 oz. You may want to double check this and revise the recipe as needed.
Hi Jen!
Well, you’re right…I’m so sorry! I actually used 2 packages of 10 ounces broccoli florets. I thought the packages were 16 ounces each and clearly I was wrong.
So sorry you had issues with the recipe. Really appreciate you letting me know!
I’ve been search for a cheesy and delicious low carb broccoli side dish and I found it! Easy to make and so good! Thank you for the great recipe.
Sorry, forgot to leave my rating and it won’t let me leave it without an additional comment.
This was amazing. I served this at a dinner party. Two of the guests hate broccoli and they both loved it! Some people liked it better than the main dish. I made extra cheese topping I know some people think there is too much sauce; but my group voted eight in favor of the additional sauce and one against it. I also did not mix the cheese topping in; but rather placed it on top – it did not spread during cooking; but rather stayed put (that was a surprise); so if you wanted less you just had to scrape it off. This gave it a rather unique flavor – a nice sharp flavor followed by the broccoli flavor. Really nice.
I love the idea of spreading the mixture on top of the broccoli. Glad to hear it was a hit with your dinner guests!
I followed the recipe exactly and when I took it out of the oven it smelled sour. My family all tried it and it was not good. It tasted like the cream cheese went sour when it was put in the oven to cook. I’m not sure what went wrong because I used all fresh ingredients.
Hi Amanda! Sorry this didn’t work out for you – the recipe has received numerous positive reviews, with a glowing review coming in just hours after this one. I have to assume that something was off with one of your dairy products. There was nothing in the recipe that could have turned them bad so I would guess they’d expired or you’d gotten a bad batch.
Is it possible that Amanda used Miracle Whip instead of Mayonnaise?
My husband and son, and I, loved this recipe! I happened to be making jalapeno popper stuffed chicken the same night and had two extra chicken breasts. SO….I stuffed the two chicken breasts with this mix and it turned out amazing! Great recipe, and especially for people who don’t like broccoli very much but still want to try to eat it.
Oh, stuffing this inside chicken was brilliant! You might just see that pop up on the blog soon. haha! 🙂
This was yummy … didn’t miss the rice at all. Low carb and delish
First, this casserole is delicious! I’m curios where you figured the carb count from because when I put the ingredients in carb manager I get 8g of net carbs…just trying to justify eating this delicious dish
Hi Jacquie! I use My Fitness Pal to calculate nutrition. MFP is always super accurate but it’s so well known and popular that I stick with that. You can use whichever calculation you feel most comfortable with. Sorry for the confusion!
Whoops, typo – that should have said MFP **isn’t** always super accurate… 🙂
What temp do you bake it at?
As stated in the recipe, this bakes at 350. 🙂
My husband was so excited for this one. Early fathers day dinner tonight, it was a side for our grilled filet mignon with mushrooms. He absolutely loved it. Thank you!!
Yay! Glad it was a hit!
[…] Broccoli Cheese Casserole – Adding cheese to broccoli is a sure win in my house and this low carb casserole never fails with my family. […]
[…] Broccoli Cheese Casserole – Adding cheese to broccoli is a sure win in my house and this low carb casserole never fails with my family. […]
Love this, what is the measurement for on serving size. Is it one cup or 1/2 a cup.
The nutrition information is based on 1/6th of the recipe. I didn’t measure the volume of each serving.
I added it in my carb counter app it says 66.2 grams of net carbs, which is basically 11g net carbs per serving (6) you said 3 net carbs. We’re not even in the same ballpark. Help!!
Hi Eric! The recipes are pulled into a database and calculated automatically on my end. The results aren’t guaranteed to be accurate because they will change based on what exact products you use and a lot of different nutrition calculators use different values.
How many cups is in a serving
The recipe serves 6. I didn’t calculate the volume of each serving.
To me it’s actually a goopy concoction with way too much cheese. I’d put in half the amount of cheese and skip the mayonnaise altogether, and add some kind of spice or herb to give it some flavor. I was disappointed, obviously.
Sorry to hear you didn’t enjoy this one.
William try adding curry and substitute ricotta for mayonnaise.
[…] Jiffy corn casserole, baked beans recipe, and broccoli cheese casserole all go well alongside this pasta […]
I’m loving all the low/no carb recipes. thanks
Thanks, Kathy!
Believe it or not, I don’t own a microwave and don’t really want one. I also don’t have a steamer basket because I don’t prefer veggies cooked this way either. I was thinking I could blanch the broccoli? Would I need to bake a tad longer? I’m just trying to get the texture you have with the finished product and hoping the blanching process would put it close to your microwave cooking process. Any suggestions?
I really don’t ever boil broccoli, but I would guess that boiling for 2 minutes would probably get the right texture. You want it hot so it melts the cream cheese mixture when you combine them. You can just bake as long as you like to get the texture you prefer – the longer you bake, the softer it will get.
I don’t have a microwave either, they take up too much room in the kitchen and I only used it to melt butter so I got rid of it years ago. That said, I do steam rather than boil all my veggies since I believe boiling leaves most of the nutrients in the water that is tossed.
Blanching is not the same as boiling. You add the broccoli to boiling water but it only stays in the water a matter of seconds. It sets the color to a bright green but leaves the veggie still more on the crisp side than cooked side. Once removed from the boiling water you immediately plunge it into ice water to stop the cooking process. It can be served as “raw” on veggie trays or used in stir fries or what ever you wish but because it is still more on the crisp side vs. cooked, I just wanted to get a feel if that is the texture the microwaved broccoli is. This would give me more of an idea of how long it should be baked if using this technique. Guess I will give it a try and find out!
I never steam veggies-don’t like the texture. Our preferred way is either roasted or grilled.
This is kind of like the “Loaded Cauliflower Casserole” except you don’t add the bacon. If you precooked some bacon, chopped it and added it to this casserole it would just finish it (I think).
Yes, bacon would be a good addition. 🙂 It’s already fairly salty with all that cheese though, so I’d omit the salt if you add bacon.
What if I roast the broccoli in the oven instead?!?
Should be delicious!
Just made this and it was amazing! Thank you
Can the casserole be made the day before? Food prepping for Christmas. 🙂
I haven’t tried, but I think it’d probably be fine.