

I am serving up comfort food realness today with a broccoli cheddar brown rice casserole. Comfort food because: hello, cheesy casserole! And realness because there are no cans of soup or blocks of faux cheese involved. It takes a little more time to make your own cheese sauce, but trust me, it’s completely worth it.

This Broccoli Cheddar Brown Rice Casserole was not inspired by a casserole at all, but by Rice-A-Roni. Or maybe Uncle Ben’s. I don’t know! But growing up, my mom would always make broccoli cheese rice from a box. That was one of my favorite side dishes, even if the cheese was powdered and the broccoli was microscopic. I didn’t care! I was making a cheese sauce for mac & cheese several weeks ago and started thinking about that rice and wondering if I could make my own version of that rice using a homemade cheese sauce. Although I took the extra step of baking it, you could also just serve it right out of the pot—that works too!



I hadn’t really intended this to be a Thanksgiving post because I think most people have their menus planned by now, but if you’re looking for an extra side dish, this one is definitely a crowd-pleaser. (And if you have French-fried onions left over from your green bean casserole you can use those on top instead of panko!) Because cheese sauce has a tendency to be temperamental, particularly when it’s made with cheddar, I wouldn’t risk making the whole casserole in advance—just cook the rice and broccoli, then make the cheese sauce and assemble the casserole on Thanksgiving day.