Our best broccoli recipes make a comforting broccoli and potato soup with cheddar, crispy bacon and crunchy croutons, garnished with fragrant fresh herbs; a pasta with creamy broccoli pesto sauce; crispy pan fried gnocchi with broccoli and bacon; my spring-summer pesto spaghetti and herby meatballs with peas and broccoli; Terence’s orecchiette with sausage and broccoli rabe from Puglia, Southern Italy; and a frittata-style Russian sour cream omelette with broccoli and bacon.
Broccoli is in abundance and super-affordable right now here in Australia, where spring has just started. The fruit and vegetable shop tables and supermarket veggie section shelves are over-flowing with green seasonal vegetables: asparagus, zucchini, green beans, garden peas, and loads of broccoli. So it’s no surprise that this easy roast broccoli recipe has been one of the most popular recipes on our site in recent weeks.
I adore broccoli, so I’m in broccoli heaven. I’ve been buying big heads of broccoli every couple of days. I’m happy to have pan-roasted broccoli piled simply on a bed of creamy hummus or a butter bean spread, drizzled with a good extra virgin olive oil. But broccoli is also wonderful as a vegetable side with this succulent braised chicken with olives and capers and a side of crispy Hasslebacks or mashed potatoes.
I’ve also been making the broccoli pastas below for my pasta-loving mother (the only way I can get her to eat her veg!); tossing stir-fried broccoli with soba noodles, which I shower with sesame seeds and chilli flakes; and experimenting with my crunchy deli-style broccoli salad, which I’ve been elevating with Australian native ingredients, and Middle Eastern spices. Not together! Recipes for both coming soon.
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Looking for more cooking inspiration? We’ve got thousands of recipes in our archives from around the world from places we’ve lived, worked, travelled, and loved. And note that you can save your favourite recipes in a private account by clicking on the heart on the right of the post. Now let’s tell you all about our best broccoli recipes.
Best Broccoli Recipes — Soups, Salad, Pastas and More
These are our best broccoli recipes for pastas, soup, salad, and omelette and more. We’ll add more recipes with broccoli here as we publish them.
Broccoli and Potato Soup Recipe with Cheddar, Crispy Bacon, Crunchy Croutons
This broccoli and potato soup recipe with cheddar cheese, crispy bacon and crunchy croutons makes a deliciously creamy broccoli potato soup without cream, but with loads of flavour and texture thanks to the cheese, bacon, croutons, and optional but recommended toppings such as fragrant fresh herbs, extra virgin olive oil, sour cream, and chilli flakes.
If you find a deliciously creamy bowl of vegetable soup as comforting and as satisfying as I do, then you’re going to love this easy broccoli and potato soup recipe with cheddar cheese, crispy bacon and crunchy croutons. It’s one of our best broccoli recipes and one of our best potato soup recipes. Bonus: it’s not only hearty, but it’s healthy, as it’s all vegetables and no cream.
Fortunately, our readers are soup lovers, too. Three of our most popular recipes this time last year were potato soup recipes. If you enjoy slurping soups as much as I do, do browse our other soup recipe collections. We have compilations of chicken soups, noodle soups, chicken noodle soups, and fish soups, along with warming winter soups (also wonderful in autumn/fall) and cold summer soups (perfect for balmy spring days), depending where you are.
Broccoli and Potato Soup Recipe with Cheddar, Crispy Bacon, Crunchy Croutons
Soul Nourishing Chicken Vegetable Soup with Wild Rice and Spring Vegetables
My chicken and vegetable soup recipe will make you a soul-nourishing stew-like soup with shredded chicken and spring vegetables such as fennel, leek, zucchini, broccoli, and broccolini; wild rice, to add texture, as well as nutrients, fibre and antioxidants; and a generous shower of grated Parmigiano Reggiano, which gives richness and umami.
If you’re fond of the classic chicken and vegetable soup but bored with the age-old combination of chicken, carrot, celery, and potatoes, and don’t have time to make chicken stock, try this quick and easy, soul-nourishing chicken vegetable soup with green vegetables and wild rice.
It’s a great use of leftover chicken or poached chicken breasts, making it not only one of our best broccoli recipes, but one of our best chicken soup recipes and one of our best chicken recipes. I love to make this soup to use up any leftover shredded rotisserie chicken, but if you’re like Terence who always has poached chicken breasts in the fridge, use those. We’ve got more leftover rotisserie chicken ideas here.
Soul Nourishing Chicken Vegetable Soup with Wild Rice and Spring Vegetables
Easy Broccoli Pasta Recipe with a Deliciously Creamy Broccoli Pesto Sauce
My easy broccoli pasta recipe with a creamy broccoli pesto sauce makes a delicious alternative to basil pesto pasta and it’s another of our best broccoli recipes. Broccoli is a super-food, rich in fibre, vitamins and minerals, making it a healthy pasta sauce. While the dollop of sour cream or cream is optional, don’t skip the lemon juice, which enlivens the dish, or the chilli flakes, which add warmth.
One of our best pasta recipes, this quick and easy broccoli pasta recipe takes just half an hour to make and is a fantastic year-round pasta. If you’re like me, that is, and can eat pasta no matter what the weather. The pasta is coated in a creamy broccoli pesto sauce but in spring and summer you could skip the cream, and serve a light salad on the side, or do as the Italians do and serve a starter-size pasta.
Pesto lover? Try our recipes for pesto gnocchi with homemade pesto alla Genovese, my basil pesto pasta with potatoes and beans (the pesto dish I fell for on our first trip to Genoa, made with fusilli instead of trofie), my pesto spaghetti and meatballs with peas and broccoli, a pesto potato salad, this pan-fried asparagus with pesto hummus, our pesto scrambled eggs, my cherry tomato burrata salad with asparagus, basil pesto and dukkah, and my Southeast Asian pesto.
Easy Broccoli Pasta Recipe with a Deliciously Creamy Broccoli Pesto Sauce
Crispy Pan Fried Gnocchi Recipe with Broccoli and Crunchy Bacon
This recipe for crispy pan fried gnocchi with broccoli and bacon makes an addictively delicious pasta with store-bought gnocchi that comes together in minutes. Pan frying shelf-stable gnocchi results in a golden-brown exterior and soft spongy interior, while the just-cooked broccoli provides a freshness that contrasts nicely with the crunch and umami of the bacon.
You’ll love this recipe for crispy pan fried gnocchi with broccoli and bacon if you’re a lover of fried pasta or fried dumplings such as potstickers or fried pelmeni and vareniki, and if you’re a fan of the broccoli-bacon pairing. Broccoli and bacon is such a great flavour match in the same way that melon and prosciutto and tomato and mozzarella are. This is easily another of our best broccoli recipes.
If you’re a gnocchi lover, try our pan fried pumpkin gnocchi with brown butter sage sauce, my asparagus, mushrooms and bacon gnocchi, this creamy tomato pasta sauce with gnocchi recipe and my basil pesto with gnocchi recipe.
Crispy Pan Fried Gnocchi Recipe with Broccoli and Crunchy Bacon
Roasted Broccoli Recipe with Zucchini, Green Beans and Sesame Seeds
One of our most popular recipes in recent months and another of our best broccoli recipes, this quick and easy roast broccoli recipe with zucchini, green beans and sesame seeds, makes a delicious and healthy vegetable side dish that cooks in no time. It’s a brilliant side to juicy meatballs, roast chicken, pork chops, chicken cutlets, grilled fish, and barbecued meats.
Broccoli, zucchini and green beans are quickly roasted on high heat in seasoned extra virgin olive oil, piled onto a creamy butter bean spread, and showered with sesame seeds. I also like to sprinkle on some chilli flakes. Admittedly, it’s a bit of an East-West fusion, as so many of my dishes are, having grown up in multicultural Australia and lived in Asia and the Middle East for a couple of decades.
I combine the extra virgin olive oil with garlic, onion, sea salt, and chilli flakes (you could use ground paprika if you’re not a fan of spicy), which I brush onto the vegetables with a silicone pastry brush, then sprinkle with sesame seeds to add texture and flavour. Instead of olive oil use sesame oil for a distinctly Asian taste, or for more European flavour, sprinkle on a little grated Parmigiano Reggiano.
Roasted Broccoli Recipe with Zucchini, Green Beans and Sesame Seeds
Broccoli Bacon Salad Recipe with Cranberries, Pine Nuts and Pangrattato
Whether in soup, pasta or even an omelette, broccoli and bacon is one of those great ingredient couplings — like tomato and mozzarella and prosciutto and melon — especially in Italy, and our broccoli bacon salad recipe with cranberries, pine nuts and pangrattato and gremolata gives an Italian flavour to the classic American deli-style broccoli salad or broccoli crunch salad.
I include the essential ingredient, cranberries, rehydrated in Earl Grey tea, for a hint of bergamot from Southern Italy. We dress the salad in a basic European-style vinaigrette instead of an American creamy dressing, add toasted pine nuts instead of sunflower seeds, and shower the salad with two beloved Italian condiments, pangrattato for crunch, and gremolata for zest.
If you’re a fan of the American broccoli salad or broccoli crunch salad as it’s also called, as it’s traditionally made with crunchy raw broccoli, then try my broccoli bacon salad recipe. Full of flavour and texture, my broccoli salad recipe makes another of our best broccoli recipes. It’s fantastic eaten on its own, but it’s also a brilliant side to juicy meatballs, roast chicken, barbecue sausages, or a great hunk of steak.
Broccoli Bacon Salad Recipe with Cranberries, Pine Nuts and Pangrattato
Pesto Spaghetti and Meatballs Recipe with Garden Peas and Broccoli
This recipe for pesto spaghetti and meatballs with peas and broccoli makes a spring-summer spaghetti and meatballs, and it’s another of our best broccoli recipes. Fresh and light, it’s a green veggie-‘heavy’ pasta with herby meatballs courtesy of a dollop of basil pesto in the meatball mixture. It’s also versatile: chicken mince is also delish, use your favourite herbs, zucchini and green beans are great, or add cream for a rich sauce.
If you love spaghetti and meatballs with tomato sauce, you’ll love this deliciously light spring-summer pesto spaghetti and meatballs with peas and broccoli. It’s one of my new favourite pasta recipes and one of our best meatball recipes. It can be made in 45 minutes, but if you make the pesto ahead of time (or use store-bought if tight on time), it can be on the table in 30 minutes.
This recipe makes a generous pasta with 25 meatballs, perfect for a casual weekend lunch in the sun with family or friends. Serve it at the centre of the table with a big salad and loaves of crusty sourdough. Or scale the pasta and veggies down and you have leftover meatballs for another dish. Notice I squashed the meatballs a little? I squeezed them between mini brioche buns to make sliders.
Pesto Spaghetti and Meatballs Recipe with Garden Peas and Broccoli
Orecchiette with Sausage and Broccoli Rabe Recipe for a Puglian Classic with a Twist
One of our best pasta recipes, and one of half a dozen pasta dishes we have on repeat when I’m home with Terence in Siem Reap, this orecchiette with sausage and broccoli rabe recipe is one that Terence cooks when he can’t bring himself to make another carbonara or puttanesca, my two most requested pastas.
Orecchiette with sausage and broccoli is a classic Italian combination from Puglia in Southern Italy. We first sampled it in restaurants around Alberobello, which is where Terence also learnt to make orecchiette. Using rapini, sometimes as the centrepiece of a dish, is also very popular in Puglia and other parts of the south of Italy.
So you can definitely make this pasta with broccoli or broccolini. Terence opted for rapini or broccoli rabe, as our American readers call it, as it started turning up in Siem Reap markets (generally labelled as Chinese broccoli, although that’s different yet again), and he was eager to use it.
We like the combination of bitterness against the sweetness of the sausage and the salty-umami hit of Parmigiano Reggiano. But you can certainly substitute the broccoli rabe with broccoli or broccolini (baby broccoli) if you’re not a fan of bitterness. If you’re not clear on the differences between broccoli, broccoli rabe (rapini), broccolini, and Chinese broccoli, see this post on The Kitchn website.
Orecchiette with Sausage and Broccoli Rabe Recipe for a Puglian Classic with a Twist
Russian Sour Cream Omelette Recipe with Broccoli and Bacon
My recipe for a Russian sour cream omelette with broccoli and bacon makes a rich omelette that can be shared between four for a filling weekend breakfast or breakfast for dinner – or between eight, frittata-style, with a salad for lunch. The omelette features that brilliant combo of broccoli and bacon, but you could always treat this as a clean-out-the-fridge meal and use any vegetables.
Sour cream is non-negotiable. There was always sour cream or smetana in the fridge of my Russian-Ukrainian grandparents’ kitchen when I was growing up. Sour cream was the first thing to go on the table, no matter what the meal, and was essential to many of our family dishes.
Dollops of sour cream were spooned onto everything, savoury and sweet. Scoops of sour cream were dolloped onto pelmeni and vareniki (the beloved Russian and Ukrainian dumplings), stirred through borscht (the hearty beetroot-driven vegetable soup), smeared onto golubtsy (baked cabbage rolls), served with blini (pancakes), and whisked into yaytsa – eggs.
My grandmother added sour cream to scrambled eggs, which were sumptuous, creamy, buttery, and velvety. She served the eggs plain on a plate and they were absolutely perfect; already seasoned they needed nothing except your attention. My baboushka also whisked sour cream with eggs to make this frittata-like sour cream omelette that I’m sharing here.
Please do let us know in the comments below if you make our best broccoli recipes, as we’d love to hear how they turn out for you and get your feedback and tips.
