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 this for our church’ bake/soup sale last week. It was AMAZING! There wasn’t any soup not sold! So many people asked for the recipe-I referred them to this site. Nobody had anything bad to say-only yum, and what’s the recipe! Thank you for sharing this wonderful recipe! It’s now asked for for all our gatherings! Great tasting and easy to make,,,,again thank you!
This is an excellent potato soup!!! I use milk lactate free and canned coconut cream as I have a lactose intolerant in my family. I have nothing to add or take away it was sooooo good!!! We had it with grilled cheese sandwiches on sourdough bread! Will keep this recipe in my folder for more yummy bowls n the future!
So so good! We make this atleast twice a month in my house!
Hi, can the flour be swapped for gluten free flour?
Hi Kiana! I think a 1:1 gluten free flour would work fine here. 🙂
absolutely delicious. I didn’t change a thing. I do prefer the full amount of ancho chili powder. Thank you, cheers. Ross
I’m sure I’m missing something, but the total cook time here seems to be maybe an hour. I thought any potato recipe needs 2 hours to allow time for the potatoes to soften?
Hi Marc! If you cut them to the inch cubes they will cook in the time stated. 🙂
I tried this today. I wanted something simple to take to my mother who is in 91 and in a senior citizen home.
I ran out of milk and used half and half instead of heavy cream and milk. I think I actually prefer this taste as heavy cream may have been too rich. I also added celery stalks to the onion, garlic mixture and smoked paprika which really boosted the flavor.
This recipe is so delicious, even without the cheese and sour cream at the end.
Thanks so much! I know mom will enjoy it!
Do you think I could use frozen cubed potatoes instead? Should they be thawed first?
Hi Cassi! I haven’t tried it. Because they are partially precooked I worry about the texture of the soup, but I haven’t tried it so I can’t say for sure how it would work.
This soup was so delicious! We loved it. Can I freeze this and defrost for another time?
I’m so glad you enjoyed it, Katie! I don’t recommend freezing it as it could potentially separate when frozen.
This is my absolute favorite receipe. I make this all the time and my husband loves it!!! This will be become your favorite soup.
Can you use water instead of chicken broth?
You will lose a lot of flavor so I don’t recommend it. 🙁
great! i didn’t have onions so I used onion powder and put ranch seasoning and a tiny bit of paprika for spices. it was surprisingly good
this is a great potato soup recipe. I hardly ever leave reviews but I found myself coming back to this recipe. love the hint with the immersion blender. thanks for cooking!
Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a review! I’m so glad it is such a hit! 🙂
I had no intention of cooking last night but it was cold and blistery out and this just spoke to me. It was absolutely delish. I subbed the sour cream for Fage greek yogurt and the whole milk for 1% as that’s what I had on hand … and just used my immersion blender in the pot for a bit to break up the potato’s. It was absolutely delish and definitely one I will make again and again.
We have made this soup twice, very easy to follow recipe. And video is helpful. This soup is excellent, it’s a favorite, thank you for sharing 🙏🏻
I’m wondering if adding broccoli and cheese to this during cooking would work? I’m not one to change recipes but I already have these ingredients that I was going to use in a different recipe. Thanks!! ( planning on doubling recipe to share)
Hi Christiann! I think you could add broccoli and cheese here if you’d like, but I also have a broccoli cheddar soup you could check out. 🙂
So easy and so good!! Love it!