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 is definitely our favorite recipe for potato soup! Is it possible to freeze a batch to save for later? Any recommendations for this process?
We’re so happy it’s a hit! This soup doesn’t freeze well–it tends to separate as it thaws–so we don’t usually recommend freezing 🙁
Super delicious, best soup I’ve ever made!
The best potato soup I have ever tasted. This is a keeper!
Delicious !!! I made with leftover Christmas ham and ham stock instead of chicken .. yummy thank you !
Thank you so much for this delicious soup recipe Sam 😋 it is a go to for me the next time I want soup. Enjoy your day! Cheers from Atlantic Canada!
Can you use russet potatoes instead of the gold potatoes?
Sure thing! 🙂
Save a few steps, dishes . No need to puree , just mash in Dutch oven
I sauté my onions with celery and grated carrots as we like as much nutrition as we can get! Great on a cool evening in Florida!!!
I’ve made this before and it was amazing however I’d like to make it again but I don’t have sour cream on hand, what could I do as a substitute?
Hi Gianna! Full fat plain greek yogurt could work here. 🙂
Made a few changes to this but it is awesome! Very creamy and borderline velvety. Nice comfort food for us in the midwest when it’s quite cold out. Warms the soul!!
What is the serving size for this recipe? I’m trying to adjust the recipe to make six pints (12 cups) of soup for a party. (It’s delicious!) Thanks!
Hi Kathie! This makes about 9 cups of soup. 🙂
I just made it and weighed it (calorie tracking purposes!) and it came out to 84 oz/10.5 cups. Also the recipe lists that it’s enough to serve 6 people which would end up being 12-14 oz of soup per person (depending on if your soup yield is 9 cups or 10.5 cups).
Best Potato Soup Ever! Simple recipe all made in one pot, which makes this my favorite new signature dish. My family goes crazy for this soup and never a drop left when served;)))
Has anyone made this with red potatoes and if so, how did it turn out?
Hi Georgia! I have not personally tried it but it should work just fine. 🙂
I made this tonight!! And it was incredible!! My husband and daughter loved it as well. I even sent the recipe to my son! Told him this is a must make soup!! Thank you for this soothing greatness.
Thanks, gonna give it a try since that’s what I have and I’m dying to try this.
I love potato soup and have created my own recipe, but this one looked so good I had to try it out! I increased the amount of bacon to 10 pieces because I like a lot of bacon fat for sautéed onions and garlic. I didn’t have my Emerson blender because I was cooking at my boyfriends house so I just used a regular potato masher. Turned out great! My boyfriend said he loved me for the first time after I cooked this so I think this potato soup might have magical properties. Happy cooking!
I’ve made this with different kinds of bacon and I get very different amounts of grease each time. Can you tell me around how much bacon grease we want to use?
Hi Natalie! You’ll want to use approximately 2 Tablespoons of bacon grease. I hope that helps!
Husband loved it. Even leftovers days after!
Loved it! So much flavor.
This was a great recipe. One I’ll make over and over.
I’m so glad to hear this! Thank you so much for trying my recipe, McKenna!
My husband and I aren’t crazy about sour cream. Is it okay to omit this or is there some other ingredient I can use?
Hi Gloria! The sour cream adds a really nice depth of flavor here. You could use full fat plain greek yogurt instead, but I don’t recommend completely omitting it.
We made it!. My teenager and I worked on it together. We had to make some substitutions as we were lacking some ingredients (white taters for yellow, coffee creamer for heavy cream, havarti for cheddar, no sour cream) but it came out awesome. No doubt it will become a house favorite. Thanks!