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!
Amazing soup followed the recipe exactly and it turned out perfect. Thick and creamy and tastes just like a baked potato. Super impressed with the results will definitely be keeping this recipe in my rotation.
it’s delicious! I added can of cream of celery soup. yummy!
This soup is amazing! My kids love it and always ask me to make it. Thanks for sharing!
This is a super recipe we have made this about 20 times now! Sooooo Good
Very disappointed. Bland even after doubling the spices and adding red pepper flakes. Very gummy and had to add several cups more chicken broth. Would not make again.
Hi Katherine! Did you make any substitutions? Gummy is quite an odd texture for potato soup. If you add several more cups of chicken broth you’ll definitely need to up the spices. You really have control of how thick the soup is pureeing more or fewer of the potatoes. 🙁
I think it came out gummy because you cooked the potatoes too long. That’s happened to me before.
This soup is the bomb. I like to add diced celery and carrots too.
Absolutely wonderful ❤️
Doubled the recipe and made it for a large group. everyone LOVED it! Made it gluten free by substituting corn starch for the flour. Came out great. Basically, everyone ate so much they were miserable.
Glad to hear corn starch worked. I was going to use potato flakes as I have to make it gluten free for my husband😊
This is the second time I’m making this soup!! It’s perfection! I’m not a potato soup fan …….strike that. I wasn’t a potato soup fan until now! I made it for my guy since he loves it and wow! The ancho chile pepper is key! I even added a little more and I also don’t love spicy! This soup is fantastic! I sent it to my gf to make as well and she loves it too!!!
Really good! Everyone ranted about it. Haven’t had a Sugar Spun Run recipe that hasn’t hit it out the park!
Thank you so much for trusting my recipes, Kerry! I’m so glad you’ve been enjoying them so much. 🙂
I have never loved potato soup; it’s underwhelming at best. However, I’ve tried enough of your recipes to trust your judgment! The ancho chili powder was bit of a splurge, but the end result was worth it. I did use a little bit more bacon. Delish! Thanks for sharing!
This is perfectly done.
Om came out great but I did use Cayenne pepper gave it that extra kick of spice.
Excellent recipe! I will keep this in my repertoire. Everyone in my family loved it. I didn’t have tarragon, but even without it I still give it ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Perfect soup
Absolutely delicious. Followed exact recipe.