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!
Excellent potato soup! My 90-yr old mom wanted it 3 meals in a row, and still complimented it. The flavors stand out, rather than being covered up by cheese. I subbed plain Greek yogurt for the sour cream, since I had none. Thank you!
I made this soup yesterday and I can’t get enough of it. So creamy and flavorful. Thanks for sharing!
Why don’t you actually bake the potatoes rather than boil? The soup has a wonderful flavor from the skins doing so.
Hi Donna! That isn’t my preference, it would be fussier and would change the final outcome from the soup, but I am glad you have a method that works well for you ♥︎
Second time making this. Still 🤩.
I love a great creamy soup . This is the best one I ever had. I actually added broccoli and carrots to mine so good.😋😋😋 I use low sodium chicken broth and one percent milk.
This is absolutely THE BEST potato soup recipe! I’m not one for bland soups (and potato usually is). NOT this one…10/10 recommend!!!! I follow the directions exactly as written and it’s highly requested in my home! If you don’t love a good kick or spice, just back the chili powder down. We like it as written! THANK YOU FOR THIS RECIPE!
Thank you so much for trying my recipe, Hannah, and for the feedback! I really appreciate it! I hope you’ll come back to my site and find something else here you enjoy just as much! 🙂
It was really tasty. At times it seemed the bacon was dominating the palate. I thought, what if I remove the bacon fat from the recipe. Also, this recipe took an hour to make between prepping which I did while bacon was cooking for the most part. The final product took about an hour to complete.
I followed the directions with a little change, the Goldie’s were a little small so added one more and the bacon had one more strip in the package then what was called for, so used it and used Cayenne pepper , it was fantastic ,
I am 77 year male and the chief cook and bottle washer in my household of 3 and this potato soup was a fantastic hit!!! I give it 5 star’s with a thank you!
Great job, young lady!!
Oh my goodness!!! I made this soup last night and it was absolutely delicious. We had it again today for a late lunch but I served it with grilled cheese and it’s even better today!!! I have shared this recipe with 3 loved ones today who saw my Snapchat that I posted about the soup!!! They requested the recipe!!! I wish I could post my picture on here!
I made this last night and it was the best potato soup I have ever had.
Made this today.Awesome recipe.
Made this yesterday and it was amazing!! One of my daughters said this is now her favorite soup, one of my others said it is up there with her favorite, and she said it would be hard to choose between the soup and Chick-fil-A!! Which is saying alot. lol.
This is definitely a recipe that will be in rotation at our house. Thank you for sharing!
This recipe is amazing! Just made it for the first time and everyone LOVED it! Will be making this regularly! Thank you
This is my favorite potato soup recipe. So great and filling
Wonderful delicious winter treat! My family ask for it again and they are not soup eaters so it says a lot about how good it is. Thank you for posting the recipe a new family favorite here too!
I did it!! And it was delicious! My family ask for it again and they are not soup eaters. I’m so glad I made it. Thank you for posting your potato soup recipe it’s a hit!! And so easy.
I loved it, used regular chili powder but less than recommended. My family rated it a 5/5 also. Thank you for posting it.