Creamy Potato Soup (without bacon)

Potatoes are simmered in chicken broth until tender and then added to a creamy broth with onions, garlic and cream and cream cheese, then pureed to your desired consistency.  

Potato soup is a hearty yet simple and economical soup.  However, a lot of potato soup recipes out there call for bacon.  Ours does not.

Potatoes are simmered in broth until fork tender.  As the potatoes are cooking, aromatics like onions and garlic are sautéed in a saucepan right next door on the next burner.  You can also add more aromatics like fresh thyme or rosemary.

Once the vegetables are all tender, a roux is made by adding flour and milk. This will help thicken the soup. To keep things very simple, we did not add any other vegetables, such as carrots, or celery or bacon to this soup.  It is a full bodied potato soup.

TO PUREE OR TO NOT PUREE

That is the question … There are times when I like to see the bite sized potato chunks in my soup without it being too thick and I like the broth to be a little thinner.

But then there are times when I want the potato soup to be a little thicker, still with a few chunks in there.

And, last but not least, there is the completely pureed creamy version.

All I can say is there really is no right way or wrong way to make this soup. The amount of pureeing you do (or don’t do) is entirely up to you.

Tips for Perfect Potato Soup

• Cut your potatoes into pieces no larger than ¾″ and try to keep them around the same size so that they cook evenly.  As Anne Burrell says ‘it’s all in the knife cuts’.
• Simmering (key word here, not BOILING) the potatoes in chicken stock infuses more flavor than plain water.  Keep the stock at a nice simmer, boiling the potatoes only breaks them down resulting in a grainy mashy type of texture.
• To make this soup nice and creamy, I recommend pureeing about ¾ of the potatoes 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.
• If you want a completely smooth soup you can puree all of it.
• Garnish with some shredded cheese, chives and cooked bacon bits.

Creamy Potato Soup

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★★★★★

5 from 4 reviews

• Author: Debi

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Ingredients

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• 3 Cups Chicken Broth
• 1 Cup Water
• 2 teaspoons Chicken Soup Base
• 5 Large Potatoes, peeled and diced into small bite sized pcs (should come to 5 cups)
• 1 Cup Onion, diced
• 1 teaspoon Minced Garlic
• 3 Tablespoons Butter
• 2 Tablespoons Flour
• 4 Ounces Cream Cheese
• ½ Cup Half and Half
• 1 teaspoon Sea Salt
• ½ teaspoon Black Pepper
• 2 teaspoons Chives

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Instructions

1. In a medium sized pot, add the chicken stock, water, chicken base and bring to a boil.  Lower the heat to a simmer and add the potatoes.  Cook until the potatoes are tender and can be pierced with a fork (10 min)
2. Meanwhile, in another pot, add the butter over low/med heat.  Once it has melted, add the onions and cook until soft and translucent stirring often (approx. 5 min).  Season with salt and pepper.  Add a teaspoon of oil if the onions get too dry.  Add the garlic and cook another minute.
3. Sprinkle the flour over the butter and cook for 2 minutes.
4. Scoop out 3 cups of  chicken stock and add into the butter/flour mixture (in 1 cup increments) whisking until combined.  Add ¾ of the potatoes to the pot.
5. Using an immersion blender, blend the soup until smooth.  Add the remaining potatoes, half and half and cream cheese, stirring until it has all melted and blended.
6. Garnish with chives, shredded cheese, bacon bits if desired.

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