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!
I made mine in the crock pot and cooked for 5 hours. also added diced carrots and a stick of cream cheese.
Can this all just be added to a crockpot and cooked for 4 hrs on high?
Hi Tina! I’m not sure that would work well here. 🙁
do you peel the potatoes or leave the skin on them?
Peel them.
I used this recipe as a guide.juiced it up to make it My own excellent outcome. Thanks
Do you think I could freeze some of this leftover soup? Love this recipe and have made it several times!
Hi Bridgette! I would be hesitant to freeze it as it could separate when frozen.
I made the soup today and add Gnocchi along with the potatoes. OMG, was fantastic. Obviously, the Gnocchi should be added the last 5min of total cooking time. Thank you for the recipe; I will be trying out others.
I made this soup today with homemade broth and doubled the recipe – 5 cups of ham bone broth and 3 cups of chicken broth. It turned out AMAZING. When I made the ham broth I ended up with a bunch of ham that fell off the bone so I added that in too! Absolutely to die for!
Use 1/2 the onion or you’ll have onion flavored soup also- cook your bacon separately or you’ll contend with blackened brown onions and soup
Colour.
Hi Mary! I’m so sorry you didn’t enjoy the soup. Did you use only 1.5 cup of a yellow onion? It should add a nice flavor but not overpower the soup. My husband can’t stand the taste of onion but loves this soup. It really just adds a nice depth of flavor. As for the bacon, you are supposed to cook that first, then remove it, then cook the onion until tender. Once the onion is tender you throw in garlic, then make the roux then add liquid so you shouldn’t be burning anything. I would recommend going back over the recipe and giving it another shot. 🙂
Hi Sam! I made it exact! I feel it is missing something? I don’t want to add too much salt but maybe it’s what is needs? I did use College Inn Chicken broth.
Was your broth low sodium by chance? I wouldn’t hesitate to add more salt if it’s bland. A little salt can go a long way to helping the flavors.
Love this recipe! Some great additions/modifications are I added celery and bell peppers and cooked them with the onions. I also used low fat Greek yogurt instead of sour cream, which tastes the same and has more protein. YUM!
Turned out great! I followed the instructions to a T. I would say the cook time is much longer than stated. Potatoes needed almost 30 minutes to be tender (not falling apart) even at 1″ pieces. This is a very tasty recipe! Thanks!
I would suggest cooking the potatoes before putting in them in the pot.
Soup has been cooking for a half hour an hour, and the potatoes are still crunchy..
Smells delicious, but I don’t think it’s good to boil milk and cream.
You may just want to cut your potatoes a little smaller next time. 🙂
Added carrot coins with the onions. Used regular chili powder. Delicious!!
Love this recipe
Made this today. My family really enjoyed it. I also browned some Italian sausage to go with it, but it is delicious with or without it. Topped with cheddar and dried chives. Only reason for 4 stars instead of 5 is because it states 30 minutes but with all the prep and wait time included out was really about 1:30. That said, I wasn’t rushing, and things usually take longer the first time around. This one is going into the meal rotation. Thanks for a great recipe!
My thoughts exactly. I’m trying to figure out how combining all the ingredients then boiling for about 10 minutes, then simmering for 30…equals 30 minutes.
Delicious! My entire family loved this. I used regular chili powder because I didn’t have ancho and it was very good!
I’ve made this soup numerous times and it’s always delicious! I’m thinking it should be okay, but once recipe has been made completely, I’m wondering if it will be okay to refrigerate over-night, then put in crock-pot to rewarm while we’re at church tomorrow. Do you think the texture will still be okay if rewarmed in such a large amount?
Hi Laura! That should work just fine. 🙂