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.
Ginny
Oh my! This is perfect cream of potato soup. I eat fairly healthy most of the time but always give in when I need to….delicious soup!
Julie
This is amazing!!! The ancho chili powder is the secret weapon for sure. My family absolutely goes crazy over this soup and I’ll never use a different recipe EVER. You just can’t improve upon perfect!! Thank you so much for sharing this recipe!!
Liv
I made this and now my hubbie is completely obsessed with it! It came out perfectly the first time and this will definitely be on our rotation 🙂
Sharon
What can I replace the ancho chili powder
Sam
Hi Sharon! You can use regular chili powder.
Christine Blau
Hi, This sounds delicious! I’m going to make it today. Would you please advise if this can be frozen? Thank you!
Sam
Hi Christine! I don’t recommend it as it could separate. 🙁
Tina long
I tripled this for a chili/Soup cook off at work and I took the grand prize!! AMAZING
Allison
Sooo yummy! Wouldn’t change a thing about this recipe!! I’ve tried many, but this is my favorite and I always come back to it! This and the chicken pot pie soup are my favorite!!
JB
DELICIOUS!!! Can this be frozen? Thanks!
Sam
I don’t recommend it as it could separate. 🙁
Deborah
I just made this & it’s delicious! I followed the recipe & it turned out perfect.
Kd
100% recommend
Virginia Allen
OMG this soup is absolutely amazing. This is a keeper for my file, it’s very feeling and the taste is so so so good. Thanks for the recipe, I look forward to more great and tasty recipes.
Em
Didn’t think I’d like it this much because I’m not usually a fan of potato soup or anything with bacon in it but… OMG!
Ice-C
I just made this along with the bread bowls. It’s sooo good. I added a couple of bay leaves and it’s perfect!
Michelle Robles
Outrageous! There’s nothing about this soup that isn’t awesome. Followed the recipe exactly, including the ancho chili powder. Will be using this recipe as a jumping off point for loaded baked potatoe soup. Incredible!
Megan
Can you do this in a crockpot ?
Sam
It’s best if made in a pot then transferred to a crock pot due to the multiple steps involved. 🙂
Jenn
This recipe is so good that the neighbors are still requesting it three years later. I made it a few years ago for a Halloween party and everyone raved about it. I am making it again this year because everyone loved it so much. This is by far the best potato soup recipe of all time! I have also made it with Oatmilk and it while it is less hearty it is still really good. Thank you for such an awesome recipe.
Leibrach
This recipe is really tasty. I had to change it a little because of what I had on hand. I had russet potatoes so I used those. I had a white onion and it was large but I used it all. We like onions anyway. Then I used 5 cloves of garlic because we love garlic. I just used the dark chili powder I had on hand and I added some boars head cheddar cheese. I used fat free milk because that is what I had but I had heavy cream so I used that like it said to and the sour cream I used what I had I think it may have been a little more than 2/3 a cup. It came out so good, even with all the changes. My entire family loved it. I froze some for a day far off, 😉 and put some in the fridge. Yum. Thank you.
Madeline
I just made it! It tastes great but for some reason it’s brown and not a creamy white… not sure where I messed up!