Instant Pot Broccoli Cheddar Soup -- The Warmth You Make While You Wait

Pitched the Grandmothers piece to a national food magazine. Not the one that profiled me last year — a bigger one. One of the legacy food publications that's been running since the 1960s. I sent the piece with a cover letter that said, essentially: seven Polish grandmothers in Milwaukee held a food tradition together for fifty years, and this is their story. The editor replied in two days: "We'd like to run an adapted version. Can you expand to twelve thousand words and add more historical context?" Yes. Yes, I can. The expansion took the rest of the week. Adding context from the Historical Society research, from the immigration records, from the old newspaper microfilm. Weaving the grandmothers' personal stories into the larger narrative of Polish-American identity in the Midwest. The piece is now a small book — twelve thousand words about women who made pierogi and saved a culture. Mrs. Wojcik helped. She came to my apartment — first time since before COVID, both of us vaccinated enough to be cautious but present. She sat at my kitchen table and I read her the expanded sections and she corrected me. "No, the festival was in September, not October." "The pierogi were potato and sauerkraut, not potato and cheese." "Mrs. Jankowski's mother was from Łódź, not Warsaw." She is the fact-checker, the living archive, the woman who holds the truth in her eighty-three-year-old memory with more precision than any document. Danny's death anniversary is coming. March 8th. Eight years. I've been running more — three miles every morning through Bay View, past the brewery, past the lake, past the storefronts on KK that I've been watching. The running clears my head and lets me think about what's coming: the shop, the writing, the spring, the opening of the world. The next year is going to be the biggest of my life. I can feel it the way you feel spring in Milwaukee — not yet visible, but definitely coming. The air is different. The light is different. Something is about to begin. Made Babcia's żurek this week. The sour rye soup. Five-day starter. The apartment smelled like fermentation and anticipation. The soup was sour and warm and perfect, and I ate it standing at the counter, looking out the window at Bay View in late February — gray, melting, transforming — and thought: this is what it feels like to be on the edge of everything.

The żurek takes five days — five days of tending a starter, of watching something sour and alive come together — and that patience is part of the point. But not every night calls for a five-day process. Some nights, when the piece is submitted and the editor has said yes and Danny’s anniversary is close and the air in Milwaukee is doing that particular late-February thing where spring is absolutely coming even though you can’t quite see it yet, you need warmth in thirty minutes. This Instant Pot Broccoli Cheddar Soup is the version of comfort I reach for when I need the feeling of a long-cooked soup without the wait — thick, golden, honest, and done before the window gets dark.

Instant Pot Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 25 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 cups fresh broccoli florets (about 1 large head)
• 2 medium carrots, peeled and shredded
• 3 cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 1/2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, freshly shredded
• 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard powder
• 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
• Salt and black pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Sauté the aromatics. Set the Instant Pot to Sauté mode. Melt the butter, then add the diced onion and cook for 3–4 minutes until softened. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more, stirring constantly.
2. Build the base. Sprinkle the flour over the onion mixture and stir well to coat. Cook for 1 minute to eliminate the raw flour taste. Pour in the broth, scraping up any bits from the bottom of the pot.
3. Add vegetables. Add the broccoli florets and shredded carrots. Stir to combine. Cancel Sauté mode.
4. Pressure cook. Secure the lid and set the valve to Sealing. Cook on High Pressure for 3 minutes. When the cycle completes, carefully perform a quick release.
5. Blend partially. Use an immersion blender to partially blend the soup, leaving plenty of broccoli chunks for texture. Alternatively, transfer about 2 cups of soup to a blender, blend smooth, and stir back in.
6. Add the dairy. Switch back to Sauté mode on Low. Stir in the milk and heavy cream and bring to a gentle simmer — do not boil. Add the dry mustard and smoked paprika.
7. Melt in the cheese. Remove the pot from heat or turn off Sauté mode. Add the shredded cheddar one handful at a time, stirring until fully melted and smooth before adding the next. Season generously with salt and pepper.
8. Serve. Ladle into bowls and top with extra shredded cheddar, a crack of black pepper, or a few croutons if you have them.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 340 | Protein: 15g | Fat: 24g | Carbs: 14g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 520mg