How to Make Creamy Garlic Parmesan Broccoli with Bacon

Creamy garlic Parmesan broccoli with bacon comes together best when you stop treating it as one dish and cook it as three: broccoli seared then steamed until tender-crisp, bacon crisped early and held back until the last minute, and a garlic Parmesan sauce built off the boil. Cook each part on its own terms, then bring them together right at the end, and you avoid the usual traps: soggy broccoli, limp bacon, or a sauce that breaks. The sauce is the part most likely to go wrong. Cream sauces thickened with Parmesan can seize into a grainy, separated mess if the cheese goes into a pan that's still simmering. ChefYoyo recommends pulling the pan fully off heat before the cheese goes in, which helps prevent that clumping or splitting in the first place. Acid goes on the broccoli itself, off heat, before it ever meets the cream, not stirred into the finished sauce. More on why in step 3. This recipe runs about 35 minutes start to finish and makes four side servings. It's a one-skillet method