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!
Best creamy potato soup I’ve had! I will be making this again!
Can this be made the day before?
Sure thing! 🙂
awesome! make it in a dutch oven because it’s too much for a 2quart saucepan to handle. 5 generous bowls.
when do you add the cheese in? it’s supposed to be loaded potato soup. not just cheese when serving
Hi Julie! The cheese is an optional topping. 🙂
Amazing.. Love it..
This is really a great recipe! I did not have the Ancho Chili Powder. So I used 2 1/2 tsp salt and 21/2 tsp pepper plus 1/8 tsp of Cayenne. It had just the right amount of heat for us and everyone loved it!
I am a caregiver. the 93 year-old lady I take care of loves potato soup< and she will be getting some of this soup next week. thank you so much.
I modified just a bit. The ancho powder didn’t do much for me so I added a bit of Carolina reaper hot sauce. Just right 🙂
I do like this recipe!!
So delicious ! I changed it up a bit also by substituting with vegetable broth and nondairy milk and it turned out perfect.
The taste was fantastic, but could probably skip the flour and rinse the potatoes before adding. Was left with too much starch in the final product. Would definitely make it again with those modifications though!
My brother sent this to me when I asked him about his go to potato soup recipe. So my family tried this Sunday night. I followed the recipe closely adding 1/8 tsp. cayenne instead of ancho chili. It was delicious! My son asked me to make it again. He kept telling me how great it was. And he never does that. lol. I was so happy with this true potato soup. I’ve seen others that look more like stews. It’s amazing. Will keep this on hand as a go to. I will probably add more bacon. Because…bacon! Thank you for this.
Perfect easy recipe for a delicious potato soup. Exactly the flavours I was looking for. One small modification – I added an extra 2 cups of chicken stock – this might vary depending on potatoes and how much they cause the soup to thicken.
This recipe has a big star beside it for my go to recipe!
I made this tonight and it’s delicious!
I had everything in my kitchen except heavy cream but it came out super creamy. Used my immersion blender and left plenty of chunks. Added white cheddar and flavors could not be better.
I’m going to make this tonight but don’t have heavy cream. Any suggestions for what I should add in substitution?
Hi Cindy! You can use all milk, your soup will just be a bit thinner. 🙂
Do you think this would freeze well? I’m making soups for my mother for Christmas and need to freeze them.
Hi Becky! I don’t recommend freezing it as the heavy cream can separate when freezing.
Can I substitute russet potatoes?
Yes