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!
After making this, it’s theONLY recipe Iuse for potato soup! Thank you!
I made this for a Christmas gathering we hosted, along with some chili. This was so amazing; it was a hit with everyone, young and not-so-young! People came for seconds and wiped out the double batch I made in no time. Someone said “I can have chili any time, but I have never had potato soup this good.” My family now regularly requests it.
The soup had a good flavor except for I would completely omit, Or at the very minimum, only use a third of the amount of garlic. I felt it overshadowed the potato soup flavor.
I made this soup for dinner last night, oh my goodness my family absolutely loved it thank you for your fantastic recipe for a dinner with cold and winds outside, and warm soup in our bellies, thank you 👍
Made this last night and we loved it. I didn’t have heavy cream but used evaporated milk instead. It was great.
Do you think it would be ok to use 2% milk in this recipe? Thank-you 🙂
Hi Angela! 2% milk will work instead of the whole milk, but the soup will be a bit thinner. 🙂
best potato soup ever, I add diced ham to it also
Indeed! who need superbowl football when I got to enjoy a super bowl of delicious potatoe soup. very delicious, Indeed!
Thank you for sharing this recipe, it was fantastic.
Delicious! My husband and I are definitely making this again! Thank you!
It was very delicious!
I use a whole pack of turkey bacon and 5lbs of potatoes. I use vegetable stock instead of chicken. I love this recipe. Blending half the soup really helps give it that creamy consistency.
Totally Wicked Pissah for a cold February dinner after skiing all day! Very hearty and flavorful without a lot of salt. I think your recipe is the one we’ve been using for a few years, but my computer died last month with all my recipes and so I searched online to find this. So yummy! I use 2T potato starch+ 1/4C water instead of the flour for a gluten-intolerant child. Thanks so much 🙂
Without a doubt the best Potato Soup recipe I have ever had. (Forgive me, Mama) The only changes I make are adding some celery and using potato flakes to thicken instead of puree and flour. Other than that, this is only one of 3 or 4 recipes I make regularly that I do not ever tinker with.
Awesome receipt but I put a ham bone in when simmering and cut off ham before putting in. I cubed ham off bone and put it in at end when last 15 minutes of simmering before serving. It turned out incredible good.
This is our favorite potato soup! It was my first time making potatoe soup awhile back and have no desire to try another recipe, it is great as is. I do add celery and shredded carrots for added veggies when sautéing the onion but other than that do the recipe as is (with the exception of using regular chili powder) It is a favorite of ours! Thank you!
This is my family’s favorite potato soup- I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve made it. I always double the recipe because my son will happily eat a whole batch on his own. It’s easy to customize, but it’s fantastic as written.