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!
Can I make this the day before without any problems reheating in a crockpot? Anything I should do specifically to not lose any flavor or texture?
Hi John! It should do just fine reheating in the crockpot.
This was easy and fast
So glad you enjoyed it, Rocky!
Super yummy!
Best ever!! I started making this a couple years ago. My family of 7 kids, in laws, 6 grandkids ALL love this so much!! Perfect the way it is-I don’t change anything. The ancho is an amazing flavor that shouldn’t be skipped. I just triple it haha Thank you!!
This is my go-to potato soup recipe. Great flavor as is, or you can play around a bit. Big batches won’t last 2 days! I make a small handful of things that get requested regularly and this is one of the most asked-for.
Thanks so much for the review, Chris! We are so happy our soup is a winner for your family 😁
can this be frozen?
Hi Nancy! I have had others tell me they freeze it with success, but I don’t recommend it as it could separate when freezing.
Hi, I will be making this tomorrow but I don’t have a blender or immersion blender. Can I just use a potato masher and sort of mash the soup to break up the potatoes?
Sure thing! 🙂
really good soup, only thing is that the total time is a total lie. it does not take 30 minutes it total, it takes about an hour including prep time, longer if you want to simmer it longer for more flavour. everyone ive made it for really loved it even if they didnt like potato soup before this.
I absolutely trust your recipes and love making them. This creamy potato soup was wonderful, and I can’t wait to have leftovers today. I did, though, find that I needed to add more flavor – I doubled the chili and added a large spoonful of ‘Better than Boullion’. Delish
The best potato soup I have ever made 😋
Would it be just as delicious if I added diced ham chunks into this recipe??
Hi Denae! You can certainly add ham into it. I have not personally done it, but many others have with success. 🙂
Sam, I made this last night, I did add the ham :), and it was delicious!! Other than adding the ham, I followed your directions and it is hands down the best potato soup I’ve ever made!! Thank you for your recipe! I look forward to trying more of your recipes!!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! I hope you love everything you try and I look forward to hearing from you again. 🙂
I’ve made this 20+ times. It is the perfect potato soup recipe!
great recipe, but needs a full pound of bacon
Has anyone tried adding carrots and/or celery? If so, which step should I put them in?
Hi Megan! I have not personally done it, but I would add them when you do the onions. 🙂
Hi Megan, I use onion, celery & carrots. I saute them all together & season then add it to the pot. I blend up some with the potatoes. Very yummy imo! I’m actually making it now for a soup competition tomorrow 😋
can you make this in a crockpot?
Hi Megan! Unfortunately there are several steps required that would not work in a crockpot. It could be kept warm in one though.
Hi Megan! My family and I have been on a soup kick so we had extra celery and carrots in the fridge. I added both, diced, along with the onion at step 3 with just a little more flour for the roux, and it turned out great!
Yes. Do it in step 3 🙂
Hi Megan! I added carrots several ways in the last few times I cooked this. The first time I did, I chopped and roasted until tender, then tossed in post blending to have some good chunks of carrot. I’ve also added them to the onions and sautéed until tender. I like my onions in this nearly caramelized so gave them a solid 20 minute head start before adding in the diced carrot.
My son really loved it! Will definitely make again and again.
Really good potato soup! Double the bacon since I didn’t want to put half a package back in the fridge, compensated by draining some of the fat. Doubled up on the ancho too and added some arbol as well. Needed like 10x of the salt listed though but that is just preference. May have went a bit overboard with the immersion blender, roughly 2/3s blended but still plenty chunky.
I’ve now made this soup 3 times in 10 days. Its been my breakfast, lunch, and dinner lol. Thank you Sam for this incredible recipe, now I have to struggle to not eat this for every meal the rest of my life. Some additional notes
I noticed no difference between the soup with sour cream vs a bit more heavy cream.
You definitely can go overboard with the ancho. My own limit was about 5x the recipe, despite my love of ancho. If you are looking for spicy add in arbol, habanero, or cayenne powders in place of some of the ancho otherwise it gets too smokey. You can also dump in your favorite hot sauce, but be careful as the flavor can go from potato soup to pepper soup very quickly.
You can add any veggies you have laying around. Carrots, diced small, can be added to the onions to soften. Or you can roast them separately until soft and add at the very end. Celery worked when added to the finished onions but didn’t really contribute much to the flavor. Highly recommend jalapenos, they can be diced and added with the garlic
If you accidentally over blend, you can add texture back with some frozen corn at the end, or by frying up some of the potato skins if you saved any while peeling. Crispy fried onions or even kettle potato chips make excellent texture adding toppings.
I keep running to the store to buy more fresh baguettes to dip in the soup, I consider these non optional
For storage, I used quart sized deli containers. I did try freezing one, it did split on thawing but just give it a little stir and its back to normal. Texture was not noticeably changed after thawing and microwaving back to hot but your mileage may vary.
Thanks so much for the review, Mitch! We are so happy our recipe has become a fast favorite for you 😊
I made The Ultimate Potato Soup last night. It was better than you’d get in a restaurant! Thank you, I will be making this soup again.
Agree about the salt needing augmentation— it is awesome and just what I was craving.
Delicious 😋