An easy and delicious creamy potato soup recipe that can be made in just one pot! Loaded with bacon and creamy potato goodness, this is a favorite comfort food in my household.
Something savory today!
Savory, creamy, and loaded with bacon, sour cream, and cheese. You guys already know that we don’t exactly do health food around here, right? 😉
Even when I’m not sharing desserts, the food is always comfort food, and that’s usually best served with extra cheese (have you tried my baked mac and cheese yet!?) and usually comes with a few calories. Let’s not think about that too much, alright?
I know I mentioned to you guys that I had this potato soup recipe for you back when I posted my Oreo Balls; I made it when Zach had a bad cold and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since (you might think that’s an exaggeration, but I can assure you that my food obsessions run deep… Please see photo below to understand why).
]
Zach prefers to eat healthy most of the time (I pretend that I do, too, but really if I lived alone I’m pretty sure I’d eat creamy cheesy foods every night and never fit through any doors ever again), so the soup was a good break from baked chicken breast, but this definitely isn’t an every night kind of meal in our house.
Potato soup is definitely on the menu for this weekend, though… it’s so frigid outside I’ve convinced myself that I need soup, specifically creamy potato soup, to survive. Potato soup makes me dramatic, evidently.
If you’re in the midst of a cold spell yourself (or even if you’re not) I think you’re going to enjoy this creamy potato soup as much as we do. Read on for some tips on how to make it!
Tips for Perfect Creamy Potato Soup
- Cut your potatoes into pieces no larger than ¾″ and try to keep them around the same size so that they cook at the same time. Nothing worse than biting into a crisp, raw-inside chunk of potato!
- To make this soup nice and creamy, I recommend pureeing about half of it either by using an immersion blender or by transferring a portion of the soup to a blender, pureeing, and then stirring the pureed soup back into the pot (maybe you recognize this technique from my corn chowder). If you want a completely smooth soup you can puree all of it, but I prefer to have a few actual pieces of potato, so I think pureeing half gives it the best taste and texture.
- Don’t return the bacon to the pot until after you have pureed some of the soup. It’s best not to blend the bacon 😉.
- The ancho chili powder is, in my humble opinion, a must and gives this soup the most perfect depth of flavor. I blend it into the potato soup and also sprinkle it on top before serving. I recommend adding just a ¼ teaspoon and then taste testing before adding more.
This would make a great comfort food for this cold and windy weekend (is there anything more cozy than a pot of soup simmering on the stove while the wind is howling at your window? Anything!?), and while I don’t follow football at all I do know that this would be great to make ahead and enjoy during the big game this weekend.
Who really cares about football when you can make yourself a Super Bowl of soup! 🤣😂 OK OK I’m sorry, enough of that!
Enjoy!
How to Make Potato Soup
The Ultimate Potato Soup Recipe
Ingredients
- 6 strips (uncooked) bacon cut into small pieces
- 3 Tablespoons butter unsalted or salted will work
- 1 medium yellow onion chopped (about 1.5 cup/200g)
- 3 large garlic cloves minced
- ⅓ cup all-purpose flour (42g)
- 2 ½ lbs gold potatoes peeled and diced into pieces no larger than 1” (this was about 6 Large potatoes for me/1.15kg)
- 4 cups chicken broth (945ml)
- 2 cups milk (475ml)
- ⅔ cup heavy cream (155ml)
- 1 ½ teaspoon* salt
- 1 teaspoon ground pepper
- ¼ - ½ teaspoon ancho chili powder**
- ⅔ cup sour cream (160g)
- Shredded cheddar cheese, chives, and additional sour cream and bacon for topping optional
Recommended Equipment
Instructions
- Place bacon pieces in a large Dutch Oven or soup pot over medium heat and cook until bacon is crisp and browned.
- Remove bacon pieces and set aside, leaving the fat in the pot.
- Add butter and chopped onion and cook over medium heat until onions are tender (3-5 minutes).
- Add garlic and cook until fragrant (about 30 seconds).
- Sprinkle the flour over the ingredients in the pot and stir until smooth (use whisk if needed).
- Add diced potatoes to the pot along with chicken broth, milk, heavy cream, salt, pepper, and ancho chili powder. Stir well.
- Bring to a boil and cook until potatoes are tender when pierced with a fork (about 10 minutes).
- Reduce heat to simmer and remove approximately half*** of the soup to a blender (be careful, it will be hot!) and puree until smooth (half is about 5 cups of soup, but just eyeballing the amount will be fine. Alternatively you can use an immersion blender.).
- Return the pureed soup to the pot and add sour cream and reserved bacon pieces, stir well.
- Allow soup to simmer for 15 minutes before serving.
- Top with additional sour cream, bacon, cheddar cheese, or chives. Enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
Ashlie
It’s decent but… missing something .. was a bit bland for me unfortunately
Sam Merritt
Hi Ashlie! I’m sorry to hear this happened! Did you make any substitutions/omissions/alterations? Did you use the ancho chili powder?
Richard
Very tasty 😋
Aftan
Hi. Can I make this recipe for the crockpot? If so, can I add all the ingredients or will it get clumpy with the flour? Thank you
Sam Merritt
Hi Aftan! The different steps are critical to the development of the flavor in this soup and you won’t be able to do these steps in the slow cooker. 🙁
Yvy
Made this recipe for my husband and I. It was wonderful. The flavor was delicious. It tasted even better the next night. I will definitely make this again.
Tina
I’ve made this a couple times & it’s very flavorful & worth making again!
Nikki
My family and I adore this soup! it’s delicious! the first time I made it, I doubled it and gave away a good bit to family and friends. They all enjoyed it and some even said it was the best potato soup they’ve ever had! Only thing I will say it that prep and cook time are definitely longer than 30 minutes each. It takes me at least an hour to an hour an a half for prep. Cooking took about 45 minutes. But this soup is worth it!! ❤️
KF
Could I use precooked bacon? Do not have any uncooked
Sam Merritt
Precooked bacon could work in a pinch you may just need some oil or something to cook your onion in. 🙂
Lori
This soup was delicious but I added a couple chicken bouillon cubes to give it a little extra flavor.
Thank you for sharing your recipe
Martin
awsome soup.Thank you!
Rachael
It turned out absolutely delicious!!!
Troy
It came out really good!!! I used a meat tenderize to smash the potatoes instead of putting it in the blender and it came out perfect.
Mariana
LOVED IT!!!!!
The recipe is JUST PERFECT!!!
Texture and flavor right on the money.
Make it, you won’t regret it.
I’m not very good at cooking and this recipe made feel I can actually cook!
Katie
made this tonight. I really like garlic, so i used a whole head of it, and i just used russet potatoes, otherwise followed the recipe.
super creamy, nice consistency and good flavor. I might do with more bacon or maybe some cubed ham, but it really doesn’t need anything.
Becky
I love potato soup, and this is a really good recipe. However, I would prefer to make it without the bacon, what could I use at the beginning to get the correct oily base into the pot?
I used an immersion blender instead of taking some out and putting it in a regular blender. It turned out that I blended it too much and it was a completely creamy soup, but it was terrific. I think it’s a previous commentator said I would use a potato smasher and break up some of the golden potatoes so some of it’s creamy and some of it has nice big chunks. Thanks for the recipe.
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
We’re so happy you enjoyed it, Becky! You can use an additional 2 tablespoons of butter in place of the bacon grease.