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 this soup be made ahead and frozen????
Hi Judy! I don’t recommend freezing it as you could have some separation occur.
Out of heavy cream, how will this affect the taste?
Excellent recipe! It is SOOOOOOO good. Sometimes I throw in some chunks of ham because we slaughter our own pigs and the ham steaks are slappin lol. But honestly, this soup has an excellent flavor! Thanks for the recipe ♥️
I’m so glad you enjoy it so much, Tina! My husband would love the addition of the ham. 🙂
AMAZING!! LOVED IT❤️
Delicious. Hubby loved it.
I’m sure this is my fault, but the leaving the bacon fat in the pot was a mistake. If you end up with a little charred bacon for any reason make sure to use a separate pot altogether. I got a horrible burnt flavour and ugly dark color. Threw away the whole thing:(
O no! I’m so sorry this happened, Erica! I definitely try to get all of the bacon bits out of the pan after cooking it. 🙁
Best Cream of potato soup ever! And I’ve been making potato soup for years. I followed recipe exactly. Thank you and I look forward to trying more of your recipes.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it so much, Barbara! 🙂
Absolutely my favorite soup to make and my family loves it! I add in diced celery and diced carrots and opt for no onion. I’ve made this recipe 5 times now and there’s never any leftovers. Can’t wait to make it tonight!
I’m so glad everyone enjoys it so much, Jo! 🙂
This was AMAZING. After I sauteed the onion, low and slow, I removed to a dish. I then added EVOO to pan and added very little diced celery and some chopped “shredded” carrots that come in a bag. It just gave more sweetness and flavor. I followed the recipe to a T after that veggie addition. I did add a little chili flakes and let people add their own cheese and sour cream. I did not have green onion on hand. Oh, and instead of my immersion blender, I used my potato masher so I could see exactly some nice chunks while parts of potato added a perfect thickness. Thank you so much for this recipe. Every Christmas Eve, my family (except mom) makes potato soup. It’s my Grammy’s Irish tradition she passed down.
I am so glad you enjoyed it so much, Crystal! It’s always great when you can tweak something to your liking. 🙂
This may be the second time I’m leaving a comment 🙂 I first used your recipe a while back, and it has become my go-to recipe for potato soup. Love, love, love this recipe!! For anyone reading this, go buy some Ancho chili powder, it’s the “secret ingredient” that makes this soup rock the house!
I’m so glad you enjoy it so much, Neva! I never get tired of hearing how much you like it. 🙂
Without question the most amazing, richest and flavorful potato soup ever. I did have to make one substitution since I only had half n half on hand used it for the heavy cream and milk which probably added to the richness but still, thank you for this terrific recipe. We are expecting more snow so I see more soup in my future. Yummmmmmm
I’m so glad you enjoyed it so much, Susie! Thankfully for me I think the snow is over with for a few months. Enjoy! 🙂
Can you make this in a crockpot?
Hi Sarah! It may be a little difficult due to the multiple steps involved, but I believe others have found a way to do it.
Best soup! Will be making again everyone in the house loved this recipe I didn’t do the sour cream because I didn’t have any and it still turned out very tasty
Thank you for this recipe
I’m so glad everyone enjoyed it so much, Madison! 🙂
Tasty! I didn’t have the ancho so added some chopped green chile instead. Then decided to throw in some frozen corn and cooked chicken breast. Dinner!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it so much, Angela! 🙂
Holy yum! Thanks for this recipe. It was perfect! The only thing I changed was I omitted the ancho chili powder (only because I didn’t have any) and only had green onion not chives. It was sooooooo good!! I’m excited to try more of your recipes!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it so much, Rebecca! 🙂
Making this tonight although I did not use 6 potatoes only 4 just because they were giant already. I also don’t have a blended so I hope this works chunky.
Hi Ashley! It will work if you can’t blend it. You can leave the potatoes whole or mash them the best you can with a large fork. 🙂
I opted to skip the blender step on purpose and the results are excellent, Ashley!
And thanks Sam. This is exactly the recipe I was looking for today.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it so much, Linda! 🙂
This is truly the best potato soup ever!! I’ve made it a couple of times and my whole family loves it. I’m currently making your pizza crust with pizza sauce and it smells so divine in my kitchen right now! Thank you for sharing your recipes. 🙂
I’m so glad you have enjoyed everything so much, Colleen! 🙂
I have made thus sevearl times andbit is always awesome! I make large crowd size batches (30 and more)and it is delicious!
I am so glad everyone enjoys it so much! 🙂
Made it multiple times, great