The Best Potato Soup Recipe Is Also One of the Easiest
Ultra creamy and extremely savory, this bacon-loaded cheesy potato soup recipe is what we turn to when we need to be warmed up on a cellular level. Old-fashioned potato soup is comfort food at its very simplest, and our recipe doesn’t mess with anything that you love about this gloriously filling, seriously hearty soup. All we’ve done is punch up some of the flavors that are already classic—salty bacon, rich heavy cream, and sharp white cheddar stirred in at the end ensure that this cream of potato soup is anything but bland. Come in from the cold and dive into a big bowl of thick, creamy potato soup. If you’re craving something a little cheesier, with a tiny nod to getting your green veggies in, check out our Broccoli Cheddar Soup.
Classic Potato Soup Ingredients, Plus A Few Extras
In place of regular yellow onions, leeks make for a sweet, earthy base for our potato soup recipe. We love how delicate they are, and how they let the creamy, starchy flavor of potatoes shine—after all, this soup is nothing if not all about how much we all love potatoes, right? In addition to salt and pepper, here are all of the ingredients you’ll need to make our potato soup recipe:
Bacon
Butter
Leeks
Fresh garlic
All-purpose flour
Russet potatoes
Broth
Whole milk
Heavy cream
Sharp white cheddar cheese. The sharper the better! You only need a little, so if you can spring for something really sharp and salty, your potato soup will be that much more delicious.
How Do You Make Potato Soup Thicker?
Different recipes use different tricks to make potato soup thick and creamy, and we basically use all of the tricks to make sure that this potato soup recipe results in a satisfyingly thick soup that’s almost chowder-like in texture. Here’s what gives our cheesy potato soup its heft:
Butter + flour. Also known as a roux—a classic technique for thickening soups and sauces. When you sprinkle the flour over the butter in our recipe, it’ll be along with the leeks, but the viscous magic will happen nonetheless.
Heavy cream. Always a sure fire way to get that absolutely rich texture we really crave from cream of potato soup.
Cheese. Lots of people simply finish their potato soup with a sprinkling of cheese on top at the very end. Well, we say that’s a missed opportunity! Not only does the cheese melt into the soup and thicken it, but it adds a ton of sharp, salty flavor.
Potato starch + blender. Potatoes are hefty all on their own, of course, and puréeing some of them (but not all) helps to make the cream-laden soup extra dense and hearty. It’s a technique we also use in our Caldo Verde soup recipe.
How Do You Make Potato Soup From Scratch?
Fry the bacon pieces and set them aside, but leave the bacon fat in the pot. Seriously, leave it there.
Melt the butter into the bacon fat. Have zero regrets! Sauté the leeks and garlic in that butter-bacon fat mixture.
Roux time! Stir some flour into the mix and let it cook for just a minute.
In go the potatoes, broth, milk and heavy cream.
Bring to a boil, then simmer for about ten minutes or until the potatoes are cooked.
Use an immersion blender to purée about half of the soup. Or, you can carefully transfer about half of the soup to a blender and purée it, then add it back to the pot.
In go the bacon, salt, pepper and cheddar cheese. Stir until the cheese is melty.
Serve!
What To Serve With Creamy Potato Soup
In our dreams, we drink this straight from a hollowed out loaf of Sourdough Bread. If you’re looking for a more refined meal idea, serving this creamy potato soup as a starter to a meal would be a real winner. We’re thinking more classics like Baked Pork Chop and Asparagus Sheet Pan Dinner or Steak Bites would be a great follow-up. You could also make some simple vegetables to serve on the side like Broccolini or a Roasted Beet Salad with Chèvre Green Goddess Dressing.
Tools You’ll Need
More Creamy Soup Recipes To Try
Is Potato Soup The Ultimate Sweater Weather Food?
Clearly, yes. At least, we’re convinced. If you make our potato soup recipe, let us know how you like it! Share a photo and tag us on Instagram using @themodernproper and #themodernproper so that we can see your stuff! Happy eating!
