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!
What can be used in the place of whipping cream?
Hi Kimberly! You can use more milk, but the soup will be thinner. 🙂
Delicious potato soup recipe! Thank you! Made it for my husband tonight and he loved it!
Delish! First time I’ve ever made potato soup and this one will be very hard to top! It is perfect for a cold winter night!
Delicious soup, just what I’d been craving. One small change is I used 1/2 tsp smoked paprika instead of the ancho chili powder. The smokiness went well with the smoky bacon. Highly recommend this recipe.
Hi! Quick question, this looks amazing- but I’ve recently learned I’m lactose intolerant, so do you think using lactose free milk and cream will alter the flavor too much? And what about skipping the sour cream? I just really miss a good potato soup, but don’t want to be in pain later lol. Thanks so much in advance!
Hi Jen! I’m not sure how the lactose free milk will taste. It may thin out the soup a bit. The sour cream adds a great depth of flavor that will be missing without it. I think it could still turn out, just know that the flavor will be a bit different than it’s supposed to be. Let me know how it goes if you do try it! 🙂
Lactaid brand makes a lactose free sour cream and fair life milk is lactose free. I am lactose intolerant and never have issues using these products.
This recipe was a hit! Tasted great.
This recipe is soooo good.!! Perfect comfort food for cold, rainy day! I Thsnk you!
I have been making this recipe for years now. It’s become a staple in our home, even being requested for birthday dinners! Sometimes I will change the meat depending on what we have on hand. My family loves it when I use ground Italian sausage (pork or turkey). Last night, I used leftover bacon and some Polka Kielbasa, which turned out amazing!
So so delicious!! I love all your recipes! I want to make this for an upcoming party! How is the best way to make and store this the day before it’s served?
Hi Sarah! I would just refrigerate it overnight and warm the next day. 🙂
I want to add broccoli and carrots. Should I steam them separately? TIA
It depends when you add them. You could cook them in the soup. If you steam them separately they may fall apart in the soup.
This was a very good and easy soup to make. It was perfect for the snowstorm that we were in. I am going to put it in my favorite soup recipes. Thank you.
OMG!! This is the absolute best potato soup I have ever made or eaten. I actually made quite a bit so I froze it and just pulled some out again from six months ago and it taste like I just made it tonight.
First time making. Will use this recipe only in the future.
So creamy and delicious.
Thank you.
This an excellent recipe, super easy. Totally making again.
best soup I’ve ever made! we all loved it.
I made this delicious soup last night , and let me say this I won’t lie I was worried it wouldn’t turn out cause of the potatoes since they are all different sizes either you could make to many or not enough . Thank goodness I winged it . But I’m a very picky eater but this was spot one very yummy ! Thank you 😊
This is awesome flavored soup. My family loved it
I don’t know that I have ever left a comment on a recipe I found on the internet, but this recipe definitely warrants some kudos & recognition! Absolutely delicious, will definitely make again & everyone in my family loved, which is a hard thing to accomplish! Thank you for sharing! You got yourself another IG follower.
Thanks so much, Jamie! We are so happy everyone enjoyed it so much 🥰