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 hands down the best potato soup I’ve ever eaten!
Fully plan on making this! But my Instacart forgot the milk. Do you think adding extra cream and watering it down would work? like 1 and 1/3 heavy whipping cream and 2/3 water.
I think that should work. 🙂
Actually had no flavor. Didn’t occur to me until the end of cooking that a grand total of 3 teaspoons of seasoning wasn’t seasoning for just over 10 cups of soup. Ended up adding around three tablespoons of Slap yo Mama seasoning salt, plus some MSG and half a pint of ale. Mostly saved dinner, but I won’t bother with the recipe in the future.
I’m so sorry you didn’t enjoy it, Adam! Did you make any other substitutions? The flavor really comes from all of the other ingredients, the bacon, onion, garlic, etc. 🙁
This is delicious! have made quite a few times now and even my friends want the recipe! it’s fantastic! I make a whole pack of bacon and filter out some of the grease before sautéing the onions and garlic. I also add cubed ham for husbands who can’t have a meal without meat lol. Will make again and again! Thank you so much for sharing! 🙂
Hello! Can this be doubled easily?
Sure thing! 🙂
Amazing
will the soup turn out if I use russet potatoes instead?
Yes, enjoy! 🙂
Can you use canned diced potatoes for this soup?
Hi Linda! I haven’t ever used them, but I don’t see why they wouldn’t work. 🙂
This soup is amazing! My family loves when I make it!
Fantastic and easy to make!
I don’t cook often but I can follow a recipe. Made this potato soup tonight. Grocery store didn’t have the ancho chili powder. Used about 1/4 teaspoon of chili powder. Soup was delicious. Thank you for the recipe.
My boyfriend isn’t a big soup guy like me but he said it’s the best one I’ve ever made! Instead of ancho I added a bit of cayenne and paprika… so so good!!!
This soup is absolutely wonderful the way it is. But my husband decided to add some cubed ham to it and it took it to another level. Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful recipe. We have already made it twice this week and shared with friends!
can I put this in thcrockpot after making? or will it get to thick?
It may thicken up a bit, but I think it could work if just left on a warm setting. 🙂
Fantastic recipe- literally the best potato soup ever!! Now I just need a bread bowl recipe to go with it!
So happy to hear you enjoyed it so much, Victoria! You could try my bread bowl recipe here! 🙂
Thank you I will do that!!
This is my go to recipe. Been using it for years. Thank you.
Never boil the milk!
This is a common myth but there’s nothing wrong with preparing the recipe as written 🙂
What keeps the milk from curdling? Will it not curdle because it’s mixed with the chicken broth?
Hi Patrice! It’s not being heated too quickly so it won’t curdle. 🙂
This is a fantastic recipe!
I was craving a more traditional soup so I started by boiling the potato cubes in low sodium chicken broth plus two bay leaves, and I substituted the ancho for powdered thyme to taste.
When the potatoes were tender, I removed the bay leaves and transferred the potatoes and broth into a slow cooker. I already had bacon crumbles so I sautéed the garlic in onions in butter.
I also inadvertently added too much broth in order to cover all of the potatoes, which turned out fine because I accidentally froze the sour cream and had none to use. The soup was still pleasantly creamy despite the accidental substitution!
I blended half of the soup after adding the remaining ingredients, and topped with havarti, fresh chives, and bacon.
I’m very glad I started with a double batch because this is everything I wanted it to be. Suffice to say, there’s a steakhouse chain I no longer need to order potato soup from, mate! 😉