Homemade Beer Cheese Soup is the ultimate comfort food! It’s creamy, cheesy, and even has some veggies (you know, for balance). Serve it up with soft pretzels for your next game day celebration, or for a cozy dinner on a chilly night.
This post is sponsored by our friends at Danish Creamery! All opinions are my own. Thanks for supporting the brands that make Blue Bowl possible.Â
If you’ve never had beer cheese soup, you are in for a treat! It feels like one of those midwestern-at-heart recipes, and it’s the perfect vessel for dipping soft pretzels (or really any carb!) into. Let’s make it together.
How to Make Beer Cheese Soup:
First, build the base for your soup by sautéing onions, celery, and red bell peppers in Danish Creamery’s European-Style Salted Butter. It adds a ton of flavor and richness to this soup right off the bat, all because of its higher fat content than other butters.
Once the veggies have cooked down a bit, they’ll look like this.
Next, add your whole milk slowly to build a thick base for our soup. Next, add the broth, and cook, stirring constantly, until the soup thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Remove the pot from the heat, and slowly stir in your cheese. Three things are important here:
How to Add Cheese to Soup without it Clumping:
- Grate your cheese yourself, to reduce the risk of your soup becoming grainy or clumpy
- Add the cheese slowly, stirring between each handful. This will also help avoid a finished soup that doesn’t have a smooth texture.
- And, like I mentioned, remove the pot from the heat. I have NEVER had success adding the cheese while the pot is on the heat, even on low heat. It has always caused the cheese to break and create a grainy texture in your soup.
Finally, whisk in your beer slowly – any basic light beer will work here, and cook for a few more minutes to cook the beer flavor off some. Garnish your soup and serve it up! I like to add some crumbled bacon on top, and a bit of diced red bell pepper. And you must serve this with soft pretzels on the side. It’s a match made in heaven!
There’s so much flavor in this soup – I mean it has all the good things. Cheese, beer, and Danish Creamery’s Salted European-Style butter, which is made in small batches for maximum quality and velvety texture. How can you not love this entire situation?
This is one of those soups that I just want to eat out of an over-sized mug with a big ‘ol handle, while sitting on the porch, watching the leaves fall. It’s the coziness of autumn in soup form. Happy cooking!
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Homemade Beer Cheese Soup
Ingredients
- 6 slices bacon, cut into large pieces
- 1/2 large yellow onion, diced
- 2 stalks celery, diced
- 2 large red bell peppers, diced and divided Reserve half of one pepper for topping your soup
- 2 large cloves of garlic
- salt + pepper
- 5 tbsp Danish Creamery Salted European-Style Butter
- 1/3 cup + 1 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 1 cup whole milk
- 2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
- 8 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, in block form
- 4 ounces extra sharp cheddar cheese, in block form
- 2 ounces pepperjack cheese, in block form
- 1 12 ounce bottle of any basic light beer
- soft pretzels or bread of your choice, for serving
Instructions
- Prep: Chop your veggies as directed in the ingredient list. Grate the cheese and pop it in a bowl in the fridge until you're ready for it, later on.
- Make the Soup: Begin by sautéing the bacon in a large dutch oven, over medium heat, until cooked through. Remove from the pot and set aside on a paper-towel lined plate. Without cleaning the pot, add the onion, celery, and red bell peppers. Add a light sprinkle of salt and pepper. Saute, stirring often, over medium high heat for 6-10 minutes, until tender. Add the garlic and cook for just a minute more. Reduce the heat to medium low, and add the butter, stirring, until it's completely melted. Add the flour, and stir, cooking, for 2 minutes to cook the raw flour taste out. Next, slowly add the whole milk over medium low heat, stirring while you add it. Cook for two minutes, stirring constantly. Slowly add the broth, stirring or whisking it in as you pour. Continue cooking this, stirring constantly, for 8 minutes. The mixture will thicken during this time - it should coat the back of a spoon, and if you pull your spoon through the pot (like parting the sea) the mixture should separate for a split second before coming back together. Remove the pot from the heat and slowly add the cheese, a handful at a time, whisking until completely melted before moving on to the next handful. This is very important - if you ignore any of these steps, you will end up with a grainy textured soup, because the cheese won't melt in properly . Return to low heat, and slowly whisk in the beer. Cook for about 4-5 minutes more over low heat, stirring lazily, to cook off some of the beer taste. Taste and season with more salt and pepper, if desired, or even a pinch of dried thyme.
- Serve + Store: Serve with the cooked bacon pieces and the extra diced red bell pepper on top. Store leftovers in an airtight container for 4-5 days.
Notes
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