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 cut the salt and ground pepper in half and substituted chipotle chillie powder because it’s what i had. i made the huge mistake of pureeing the potatoes ahead of time and it made the soup “soup” before i was ready for it to be soup. adding about two cups of water, blending with a whisk and simmering for an extra 10 minutes solved the problem. (don’t forget to open a windo) tastes good. maybe i’ll add a bit less salt and pepper next time as the flavors really don’t need it after adding the chipotle. thanks! this will probably feed me for a good couple days.
I am so glad you enjoyed it, James! 😃
What a great recipe ! Thanks ! I like my potato soup all the way chunky so I just used an old fashioned potato masher right in the pot as it cooked. Superb !
I’m so glad to hear you enjoyed! 🙂
OMG!! I usually dont follow a recipe and thought I would this time 😉 YUMMMY!!! I used cubed ham because I forgot the bacon and about a cup of chopped carrots….STILL PHENOMINAL!!! Thank you so much for sharing!!
Happy holidays to you and yours!!😘🎄🎁🎉
Happy holidays to you as well, Keri! I am so glad you enjoyed the soup. 🙂
I recommend not opening a bottle of wine and doing online shopping while making it.
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I’ve made this recipe 3 times and no matter how it turns out, it’s ALWAYS delicious! I lessened the chicken broth to make it thicker, and I love it! Such a great recipe!
I am so glad you enjoyed it, Courtney! 🙂
This was so good , I did use 1/3 cup sour cream & 1/3 cream cheese , it was excellent, Thank You
I am so glad you enjoyed it, Karyn! 🙂
Delicious. Simple. Relatively quick. My family and I really enjoyed this recipe! Thank you for sharing!
Thank you very much, Lisa! I am so glad you enjoyed it. 🙂
How many servings does this recipe make?
Hi, Sarah. It makes about 6 servings. 🙂
I am serving this Christmas Eve and there will be 9 of us– should I double the recipe? Can I make it a day or two ahead of time?
Hi, Jojo! The recipe will make about 6 servings (obviously depending on the size of the individual serving). There shouldn’t be any issue making it ahead of time. Enjoy! 🙂
Very good soup! I didn’t purée any of the potatoes! I used a potato masher while still in the soup and it came out with the perfect texture! Lots of potato nuggets, but a great thickness. Made it a lot easier and saved a step!
I am so glad you enjoyed it, Deb. 🙂
Loved it! So easy and delicious
Thank you so much, Dawn! I am so glad you enjoyed it. 🙂
I just had my wisdom teeth removed and this is the best meal to have! Didn’t change anything at at. It was perfect!
I’m sorry to hear about your wisdom teeth. I hope you feel better soon! I am glad you were still able to enjoy the soup. 🙂
I made this soup for a friend after having dental work, so I purred it all. I left two small portions for my daughter and myself for dinner … BIG MISTAKE! This is seriously THE MOST DELICIOUS homemade soup I’ve ever tasted, and I am not a huge soup fan!
Making it again today for dinner tonight before we jet out of town for some holiday fun. This time the entire pot is for us!
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I am so glad you enjoyed it! I hope you have a good time. 🙂
Oh wow! That was the best I’ve ever had… my hats of to ya! Hands down great recipe! The pot is bone dry lol
Thank you so much, Chris! I am so glad you enjoyed it. 🙂
Hi! I just got done making your recipe. Needless to say, it was phenomenal. Thanks for sharing! My boyfriend loved it, and so did I. We are absolutely satisfied. 10/10, great job. The only thing I did differently was added some extra bacon 😉 We love bacon here in this household! I’ll definitely make this again.
You can never go wrong adding more bacon! 😉
So glad to hear you both enjoyed! Thank you for commenting, Alyssa!
Was looking for a really good recipe and this may be it. Fixed it following her recipe except for the heavy cream and chili – only had cayenne but it turned out great. Didn’t have any heavy cream so used evaporated milk instead of all milk. Gave it a great flavor. Had never tried chili powder in a soup and it made all of the difference. Forgot the sour cream – overlooked it actually – but added it today when I reheated. This is a great recipe
So glad you enjoyed, Carol! 🙂