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).
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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.
Kim
What if I have no Dutch oven and do I have to use the blender? Can I just cook it on the stove?
Sam Merritt
Hi Kim! Any large pot will work. You can try mashing the soup with a potato masher if you don’t mind a chunkier texture 🙂
Elizabeth
So delicious!
Cat
I altered the recipe in that I used left over roasted chicken and boiled it down to use that for broth. Adjusted the seasoning and it’s very good and comforting. Will add shredded cheese as a final touch for topping.
Brandy Hill Wilson
This was amazing and my picky son Gabe it a 10/10. We did add the whole package of bacon.
Adieren
My favorite ❤️ this soup is flavorful, creamy, and makes a perfect base for so many other soup favorites!!!
Made this twice and everyone loved it- even my picky eaters!! I skip the bacon 🥓 and it super delicious!!!
Audrey
I had a 5 lb bag of russets that needed to be used up, found this recipe and am so glad I did! I added carrots and celery since I had some that also needed to be used up and cooked it with the onions and garlic before adding the flour. I didn’t have ancho chili powder so used chili powder and completely forgot about the sour cream.
My husband who always claimed he does not care for potato soup gobbled it right up!
Thank you for this recipe!
Ang
Have you tried with a pressure cooker/Instapot? I’m going to attempt 10 minute cook time under pressure and see how that goes with the potatoes.
Sam Merritt
Hi Ang! I have not tried it so I can’t say for sure how it would turn out.
Evy
made it on Christmas Eve. We loved it. made two more batches since then. Easy and delicious. Great comfort food. Thank You!
Sam Merritt
I’m thrilled to hear this, Evy, thank you so much for trying my recipe! I’m so glad you enjoyed it 🙂
Dr. Bob Brandt
Gummy and tasteless
Sam Merritt
So sorry to hear that, Bob! Unfortunately it sounds like you went too crazy with the blender, way overdoing it with the potatoes is the only thing that would make the soup gummy 🙁 try to go a little lighter on it next time and don’t puree for as long. As for the tastelessness… I would double check you used all the seasonings and maybe try another sprinkle of salt? As-written it’s not really possible for it to be tasteless or even bordering bland.
Evy
you can always add a little more chicken broth to hhon it out.
Lisa
I don’t know if this was the case for you, but I have found that using low fat sour cream makes whipped potatoes gummy.