The Ultimate Creamy Potato Soup
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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 3/4″ 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 1/4 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
Equipment
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
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
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like this? Leave a comment below!
This soup has become a weekly meal in our household during the colder months. Sooo delicious, I add a couple extra pieces of bacon! And sometimes corn as well. Super easy to make and Everyone is always so impressed with this soup. we loveee it.
Thanks so much for the review, Jo! We’re glad you enjoyed the soup 😊
Made this soup tonight. I added celery and sautéed them with the onions. I also added chopped carrots (the frozen kind because I wasn’t sure they’d cook as fast as the potato chunks. Soooo delicious!!! This will be a goto recipe. Thank you!
Sounds great, Jean! We’re so happy you enjoyed it so much ❤️
I made this for the first time (I think) tonight for a friend’s birthday. Her son, wh doe the cooking in their house, was tinking about a potato soup he had made recently, and when he found his recipe again online, he realized that he had used this recipe, too. It was the bacon (and then adding butter to it) that had attracted him to it. When it was nearly finished, I realized that I had forgotten to add the flour, so I made some beurre manie and added that, and it thickened it beautifully. Since I didn’t have my immersion blender at their house, and I didn’t want to ladle it into the blender, I just used a potato masher on part of it, and it worked great.
That’s too funny! So happy it was a hit for both of you 🙂 Enjoy, Bruce!
This is so good. We used leeks in place of onions and used 1% milk instead of whole (we always have 1%), but everything else we kept the same. We are going to make this again but I will be doing half the recipe going forward, unless we are having company.😁
Wonderful! We’re glad it was a hit 🤩
I had to go to 3 different stores to find Ancho Chile powder but it was worth it, I feel!
I really enjoyed this recipe. It was so super rich, a real luxury. The best potato soup I’ve ever had!
I followed this recipe exactly to the tsp and it came out perfect. Thanks!
The ancho really does make a difference–we’re so happy you were able to find it! Thanks for trusting our recipe, Bobby 🥰
Delicious! I added carrot, celery and diced ham just to make it more of a meal!!
Sounds yummy, Tracy! Enjoy 😋
I used oat milk and omitted the heavy cream; I added mushrooms and I put the grated cheddar cheese into the soup after the immersion blender part. I additionally put green onion stalks sliced fine into it near the end. Otherwise did everything the same. This is insanely good – I’ll be cooking it in Italy this summer for my mostly vegetarian family – hope I can find a bacon substitute
This is the best potato soup ever! My son raves about Firehouse Subs Potato soup and says this is even better. I agree! Thank you for sharing your recipe!
Thank you so much, Tammy! We’re so happy it’s a hit for your family 😍
I’ve made this several times before with a few tweaks and my DIL loved it so much she asks me to make more, so I always have to double recipe. My tweaks: I add a little creole spice and I use Knorr chicken bouillon (jar) which allows me to adjust the flavor to our liking. I didn’t have chives so I used green onions and sharp cheddar cheese. This time I used diced red potatoes that I found at our local Costco, although still delicious, I think I prefer the russets.
Sounds delicious, Kim! Thanks for using our recipe 😊
I’m excited to try this, quick question do you think it would be good if I substitute leeks for onions? I have some I need to use up and thought maybe it could work?!
Thanks!
Sounds yummy. Let us know how it turns out!
I substituted with leeks and it is so good. We are definitely making this again.
My husband and I made this for date night cooking. It was fantastic and will become one of regulars for the winter. Does it freeze ok for later?
We typically don’t recommend freezing it because of the cream (it can separate when thawing), but others have told us they’ve done it ☺️
How many people can you serve this to?
Hi Bethany! This recipe makes six servings 🙂
Best soup I’ve ever made. Will definitely be my go to potato soup recipe.
Scrumptious!!! This recipe is definitely a keeper
, thank you so much!
Thanks so much for the review, Tasha! ❤️
THE best potato soup I’ve ever had. I didn’t puree anything. Turned out so, SO good. Highly recommend this recipe.
Thanks so much for letting us know how you like it, Theresa! Enjoy ❤️
This potato soup turned out sooooooo delicious. Wonderful recipe. Must try.
We’re so happy you loved it Christina! Thanks for the five star review 🤩
Super yummy I did a couple tweaks to it but I just got all the ingredients today I personally like to cut my potatoes at different sizes because the smaller ones do the blending for me as they break apart and thickening it up and make it creamier I don’t mix mine and that’s why I like different sizes so the smaller will disintegrate but otherwise this is absolutely delicious and amazing I also added pancetta and a naturally wood smoked sea salt for my smokiness and two celery sticks
I also wanted to update I love this so much but tomorrow I am making three batches and going to be jarring it I’m going to do some canning for the shelf so I can pop one of these jars and have soup whenever I want it’s delicious
This sounds yummy! I’m going to make this next week for my daughter who will be having her wisdom teeth removed, all 5 of them! Yes, she has five? Go figure. Will completely purée part of it for her & incorporate some cheese with hers before puréing so she gets some cheesy flavor. No crumbled bacon for her but I will definitely have some! Can’t wait to try it!
Oh no–that sounds painful! Potato soup should be just the thing to make her feel better ❤️
I’m thinking it will be more filling than just broth.
Definitely! 😊
Made it last night exactly to the recipe, AMAZING!! I thought about it all night and had some leftovers for breakfast and it’s like all the flavor multiplied over night! So so yummy!!
Just found your account and and time trying this recipe – it was perfect! Thank you!! Looking forward to trying more of your recipes!!