This Creamy Potato Soup with bacon is the perfect winter soup. Made with simple ingredients, this soup is the definition of comfort food.
Nothing speaks to my soul in winter quite like a great bowl of hearty soup. It can be an entire meal just in one bowl, which is such a win when you have a busy family life.
This creamy potato soup is just such a hearty soup. Below you will find all of my tips and tricks for how to make this soup turn out perfectly. We have everything covered from how to make a roux to what type of potatoes to use. We even have instructions for transforming this soup into a vegetarian or vegan dish. I hope your family loves this delicious soup as much as I do.
I made this for dinner tonight and it was delicious! Perfect for a cold November evening. We paired it with a nice, hot, crusty Italian bread. I did add more carrot, just because we love carrots, but that is the only change I made. Another fabulous recipe!!
How to Make Creamy Potato Soup from Scratch
Here is a brief overview of how this easy potato soup recipe comes together. For the full recipe including all measurements, see the printable recipe card at the bottom of the post.
- Cook your bacon. Dice up your raw bacon and cook it in a large stock pot. It will render its fat which is the first thing you need for your epic roux.
- Sauté the veggies. Add the chopped vegetables to the pot and cook them in the bacon fat until they are soft.
- Make the roux. Whisk in the flour. Then slowly add your chicken stock, two tablespoons at a time for the first little bit, fully whisking in your liquid.
- Add the potatoes. Turn down the heat to a simmer, stirring regularly, and cook until the potatoes are fork-tender. Then stir in the milk and serve.
Making a Roux: The Key to Potato Soup
The key to this recipe turning out perfectly is making a good roux. A roux is a combination of fat and flour. When made well, the fat coats the flour and keeps it suspended in the soup, making a thick and creamy soup. In this soup recipe, we are using bacon fat, but butter will also work very well.
There are a few things that help ensure your roux turns out well:
- Whisk the flour really well into the vegetables and allow it to cook for about thirty seconds. This will eliminate the flavor of flour in the soup.
- Add the liquid to the roux slowly at first. I like to add about two tablespoons at a time in the beginning, only adding more once what I have just added is absorbed.
- The more liquid you add, the more quickly you can go. The whole process should only take about a minute or two.
Vegetarian Potato Soup
If you would like to make this soup, but you follow a vegetarian diet, I have a fantastic solution for you. You can use butter as your fat in the roux instead of the bacon. You will want to melt a little less than 2 tablespoons of butter in your pot. Use that to sauté your vegetables, and then continue with the recipe as written.
If you follow a vegan diet, you could replace the butter with oil, and replace the milk at the end with unflavored soy creamer.
Best Potatoes For Potato Soup
Russet potatoes are the best potatoes for soup due to their low starch and high moisture content. They soak up the creaminess of the soup perfectly! You could also use Yukon gold potatoes if that is what you have on hand.
This creamy potato soup with bacon takes about an hour to make, but a big chunk of the time is just letting the soup simmer so the potatoes get soft. And I have to say, we love a great soup like this for a weeknight dinner in the fall and winter. It’s so comforting and it’s the ultimate one-pot meal.
Tips and Tricks
- Cut your potatoes up small. Small, even-sized pieces of potato will cook evenly and faster than bigger pieces.
- Use a blender. If you want a creamier soup, use an immersion blender to smooth it, or put half of the soup in the blender. Blend until smooth and add it back to the other half of the soup. This will make the soup creamier and less chunky.
- Thin the soup. If you want a thinner soup, add more chicken broth or more milk at the end until it reaches your desired consistency.
- Save some bacon. Cook some extra bacon and set it aside for garnishing the soup.
Making Potato Soup in the Crockpot
Make this creamy potato bacon soup in the crockpot and come home to a warm and delicious dinner ready to enjoy. I recommend following my steps in this crockpot potato soup recipe so that it comes out perfectly.
Crockpot Potato Soup Recipe
Storing and Reheating Leftovers
Store any leftover soup in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to three days. Reheat only the portion you plan to eat in the microwave at half power or on the stovetop over low heat, stirring often so the soup doesn’t separate.
Freezing Potato Soup
This is a great recipe to make a double batch so you can freeze some for later. Allow the soup to cool and transfer it to a freezer-safe bag or container, leaving some room at the top for it to expand. Store in the freezer for up to three months.
When you are ready to eat your soup, allow it to thaw in the refrigerator overnight. Then heat on low, stirring often. Doing this slowly will prevent it from separating.
FAQ
Yes! See my directions above for freezing.
Because we make a roux with flour, this soup is not gluten-free. You can replace the flour with cornstarch to make a gluten-free potato soup.
I prefer to peel my russet potatoes for this soup. If you like the texture and flavor the peel adds, just scrub them thoroughly to remove any dirt and debris.
What to Serve With Potato Soup
- Cheddar Bay Biscuits: We love having bread when we have soup, and these delicious little biscuits are so easy to make and so yummy.
- Chopped Salad: Nothing completes a soup dinner, like a salad. This chopped salad is so simple, but has the best dressing to go with it.
- Roasted Green Beans: If you are looking to add more vegetables to your dinner, this is a delicious way to do it!
If you make this creamy potato soup recipe or any of my other recipes, please leave a comment and let me know what you think. I love hearing from you!
Creamy Potato Soup with Bacon
Ingredients
- 6 slices thick-cut bacon diced (read above for how to make this potato soup vegetarian)
- 1 small yellow onion diced
- 3 stalks of celery diced
- 2 carrots peeled and diced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1/3 cup all purpose flour (40 grams)
- 2 cups chicken stock
- 2 pounds russet potatoes peeled and diced (907 grams)
- 2 cups whole milk (236.588 ml)
- salt and pepper to taste
- shredded cheddar cheese for topping
- diced scallions for topping
- bacon pieces for topping
Instructions
- In a large heavy-bottomed stock pot, cook the bacon until just crispy. It will continue to cook as you move on to the next step, so you do not want it to get overly brown in this first step.6 slices thick-cut bacon
- Add in the onion, celery, carrots, and garlic. Cook until the vegetables are soft, about 5 to 7 minutes.1 small yellow onion, 3 stalks of celery, 2 carrots, 2 cloves garlic
- Stir in the flour into the vegetable mixture. Allow it to cook for about 30 seconds. Then very slowly add the chicken stock. It works best to add a few tablespoons at a time, whisking throughout in between. This should take about 2 minutes at the most and the more liquid you add, the more quickly you can add more.1/3 cup all purpose flour, 2 cups chicken stock
- Bring the mixture to a boil and add in the potatoes. Turn down the heat to a simmer, stirring regularly, and cook until the potatoes are fork tender. At this stage you want to see intermittent small bubbles. Let this soup simmer for about 20 to 30 minutes. (Make sure the heat is very low. If it is too high, too much of the liquid will evaporate.)2 pounds russet potatoes
- Stir in the milk and allow the milk to cook through, about 1 to 2 minutes. Top with cheddar cheese, bacon, and diced scallions. Enjoy!2 cups whole milk
Samantha Witbak says
I’m wondering if I can substitute 1/2 cup of heavy cream for 1/2 cup of the milk?
Definitely! It will be thicker, but delicious!
Laci says
I’m making this tonight. I’m really nervous about making the roux. I’m a horrible cook but this recipe I have to try!
You can do it Laci! Just make sure to add the liquid slowly at first, whisk a lot, and put your pot over medium low heat. Turn the heat up a little if it’s not bubbling. You’ve got this.
Andy says
I made this last night and it was delicious! 2 cups of stock wasn’t going to be enough, so I used 4 cups of stock instead of 2. Other than that everything was the same. If you want a soup for those long cold winter nights, you can’t go wrong here.
Sharlon says
Can you make this the day before serving and reheat?
Yes, just be sure to reheat over very low heat and stir often.
Shirley says
Is anyone experimenting/developing these kind of recipes using potato starch as a thickener rather than making a roux?
David Rodriguez says
Loved the potato soup – the ultimate comfort food. I stretched the recipe a little, adding more potatoes, bacon and flour. I then added a little more stock. At the end, I used a potato masher to mash some of the potatoes in the pot. This served to thicken the soup. Came out great.
Now that I have so much soup, does it freeze well?
This soup will freeze fine, just make sure to reheat it over low heat, stirring often.
David says
Loved it – the ultimate comfort food. I added more stock originally and thickened it in the end by mashing about half the potatoes in the pot with a potato masher.
Does it freeze well?
Toots McLean says
This was easy and excellent!!! My husband Loved it too!!!
So glad to hear this!
philomelaarias says
delicious and yummy recipes
Kat says
This turned out ok, but it’s method a bit odd. Cooking the potatoes in an already thickened broth was unnecessarily challenging. No way 2 cups broth would even cover 2 pounds of potatoes and I used 3 cups to make it work. The only real flavor came from the bacon.
This is a pretty typical method for preparing a soup with a cream base. If you watch the video, you can see that two cups of broth doesn’t cover the potatoes, but they still cook perfectly and turn out fine. The final liquid of the whole milk makes it the perfect ratio of broth to other ingredients . . . I wonder if you would have liked it a little bit more if you had stuck to the 2 cups of stock.