Absolutely heavenly loaded baked potato soup. This soup is everything you love about baked potatoes.
Loaded Baked Potato Soup is one of my favorite soups, and is perfect on a cool night. The potatoes can be baked ahead of time, making prep time in the evening much shorter. Wouldn’t you enjoy a bowl of this after a long day?
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When I was a kid, I hated potatoes. I really, really, HATED potatoes. So when my grandmother would offer me her famous potato soup, I quickly declined every time. As I got older, my tastes changed, and while I am still not a huge fan of mashed potatoes, I do like lots of potatoes now. One day I was in a restaurant with my hubby for a date/lunch, and tried some potato soup. I died and went to heaven.
And I wished I had tried my Grandma’s Potato Soup.
After that, I started trying out recipes, and came up with one that we all liked…even my “soup-hater.”
To Make Loaded Baked Potato Soup, You Will Need:
- russet potatoes
- bacon (I now use turkey bacon – How to Make Crispy Turkey Bacon)
- butter
- onion
- garlic
- all-purpose flour
- chicken broth
- milk
- half & half
- grated sharp or extra sharp cheddar cheese
- salt
- pepper
- parsley
- sour cream for topping (optional)
- Dutch oven/Soup Pot
- potato masher or immersion blender
Watch Me Make This Recipe:
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Loaded Baked Potato Soup
Rich, thick & Filling Loaded Baked Potato Soup
Ingredients
- 4-5 lbs russet potatoes
- 8 slices bacon (reserve 2 Tb bacon drippings) - See Note
- 2 Tb butter
- 1 large onion
- 3 cloves garlic
- 3 Tb flour
- 2 c chicken broth
- 2 c milk
- 1 c half & half
- 2 c grated sharp or extra sharp cheddar cheese, divided
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1 1/2 tsp parsley
- sour cream for topping (optional)
Instructions
- To begin, bake your potatoes. Simply wash and dry them, poke several times with a fork, and then rub the skins with a little olive oil.
- Place them on a baking sheet and bake at 375 for about an hour or until a knife inserted in the center goes in easily.
- Take them out an allow them to cool. (This can be done ahead of time, or even the day before. Just store the cooked potatoes in the fridge until you are ready for them.) Your potatoes need to cool enough so that you can handle them.
- In a skillet, cook up 8 slices of bacon until crispy.
- Place them on a plate lined with paper towel to absorb the grease. Cut or crumble the bacon and set it aside.
- Place 2 Tb of the bacon drippings in your Dutch oven. Dice up a large onion, and mince the garlic. Sauté them in the Dutch oven until tender and have a little color.
- Meanwhile, scoop the insides of half your potatoes into a bowl. The other half of the potatoes, you'll peel so you can cut the "meat" into chunks.
- When the onions are tender, add in the butter and let it melt, then stir in the flour. Cook for just a minute and let the flour get bubbly.
- Pour in the chicken broth, milk and half & half. Cook this over medium heat until it comes to a gentle boil.
- Reduce the heat a little.
- Add in the scooped potatoes, and with a potato masher, mash the potatoes into the soup as best you can.
- Stir in 1 cup of the shredded cheese, and let it melt into the soup.
- Stir in the potato chunks, and let it cook until the potatoes are heated through.
- Stir in the salt, pepper and parsley.
- Serve topped with extra cheese, crumbled bacon, and optional sour cream.
- Enjoy!
Notes
* The potatoes can be baked ahead of time, making prep time for a weeknight ideal.
* If half & half isn't handy, you can simply increase the milk to 3 cups.
*I now use turkey bacon instead of traditional bacon. Instead of using bacon drippings, I just use butter to be biblically clean.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
6Amount Per Serving: Calories: 2009Total Fat: 43gSaturated Fat: 23gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 15gCholesterol: 124mgSodium: 1558mgCarbohydrates: 338gFiber: 35gSugar: 20gProtein: 69g
Nutritional Disclaimer: Nutritional data is provided as a courtesy and estimated by a service called Nutritionix. That is a web-based nutritional calculator and is not guaranteed to be accurate. If the nutritional information is vital to you please verify it using your favorite trusted source.
The perfect soup for a cold winter day!
Hi, I made this a few days ago. I made no changes and it turned out extremely thick, like room temperature oatmeal. I doubled the chicken broth, and it was still way too thick. Is it supposed to be that way? Nice flavor, though!
Oh my! It *is* normally a very thick soup, but not quite that thick. I wonder if the potatoes were starchier than usual. If you decide to make it again, maybe mash less potatoes and leave more of them in chunks. The mashed ones do add quite a bit of thickness to it.
I don’t know if russets are starchy, but that’s what I used. Just finished it up today…it was very good.
It is soup season here…by the way we got an IPCOT
I\’m so jealous!