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 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.
Celeste Odono
It’s a cold and rainy fall day today so I made this soup. It’s so delicious. My picky son who doesn’t like soups actually had seconds. I served it with some cranberry pumpkin seed bread.
Greg Draiss
Very easy to make, and quire delicious
Radha
Great recipe and photos!
I added 8oz sliced mushrooms, 1 chopped carrot, and 2 cubes of chicken bullion. Skipped flour, butter, and heavy cream for a healthier version. The half-pureed soup thickened nicely. Really delicious! Thank you!
JB
Great recipe! I have three vegetarian people in the house. I double the buttervand omitted the bacon, I put my bacon in after. We love this recipe. Thank you.
Ashton
Could this work in a crockpot?
Sam
Hi Ashton! It could be kept warm in a crock pot, but I’m not sure it would work well to cook it in one. 🙁
Mickie
Very good. The used chipotle because it was all I had. It was slightly heavy onion flavor, but we are sensitive to that so next time will do less. Thank you.
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Thanks for giving it a try, Mickie! 😊
Kenneth L Verlac
I have made this soup many times. My wife loves it. Great recipe and easy instructions.
Ken
Courtney
This is the third potato soup recipe I made, and FINALLY we have a winner!!!!! Made exactly as directed and it was perfection.
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Thanks for giving our recipe a try, Courtney! We really appreciate the review 😊
Jill Patterson
This was so delicious! My new favorite potato soup!! Thank you!! I made exactly as recommended!
Coni
absolutely amazing made it several times comes out great each time my family will only eat this suip recipe
Casey
Delicious! Used Chipotle chili powder since I didn’t have Ancho- also had to use half and half vs heavy cream- just used a little more of that vs milk and it turned out great! Thank you!
Kaitlyn Mills
I make this soup at least once a month exact same other then doing a whole pack of bacon rather 6 pieces it’s so great and everyone always enjoys!
Traci
A++++++
L
I made this but was short on cheese so I added a pack of KD cheese powder!!! YUMMY
Dorothy Ianucilli
do iihave to use bacon?
Sam
You can omit it, but you will want something to cook the onions in and you will be missing a lot of flavor.
MICHAEL J VLAOVICH
My wife had been craving potato soup and talked about how good her mom made it. I have to admit that it was through internet browsing the photos included with recipes that I chose this one (it was pretty photogenic). It turned out great according to my wife and I had never had potato soup before (but plenty of NE Clam Chowder) and I loved this as well. My few modifications to the recipe were using stored bacon grease and (big warehouse store brand) bacon bits rather than fresh frying the bacon, halving the amount of diced yellow onion and some moderate increases to the amounts of garlic, chili powder and sour cream.
Samantha C
Thank you for this! I was wondering if I could make ahead a few hours and keep warm in crockpot? If so, would I wait to put in sour cream and bacon? Thanks so much again!
Sam
Hi Samantha! This should be totally fine. I would personally add the sour cream as written in the recipe, but I might keep the bacon off to the side and serve it on the side. Enjoy!
Kenneth L Verlac
I have made this soup many times. My wife loves it. Great recipe and easy instructions.
Ken