This is the absolute most velvety potato soup, flavored with rosemary and leeks and topped with everyone’s favorite baked potato toppings: cheddar cheese, scallions and bacon.
Fall weather is in full swing and before we know it, it’s going to be winter. For me, the most important part about that is: it’s soup season! Soup is one of my all-time favorite foods. In fact, I tell people that if I had to choose one food to eat for the rest of eternity, it would be soup (I know it’s an unfair choice because there are so many different types of soup). But this uber creamy baked potato soup definitely falls into the top five of my all-time favorites. It is luscious and velvety, flavored with rosemary and leeks to help the potatoes along, and topped with everyone’s favorite baked potato toppings: shredded cheddar, bacon and scallions.
The inspiration for this baked potato soup recipe comes from one of my brother’s favorite you-tubers, Brian Lagerstrom. Everything that chef Brian makes always looks amazing, and I love that he does everything in a very technical way so you get to understand the basics behind great cooking. This recipe is based off of his recipe for basic cream based soups, and the fact that it’s so simple means that you can put countless spins on it.
CHEF BRIAN’S STEPS FOR THE CREAMIEST SOUPS
1. SAUTE AROMATICS
“Aromatics” refer to the vegetables and herbs that add base flavor to a recipe. Garlic and onion are a great base for pretty much any soup. You’ll want to sauté them for a good 15 minutes until brown and caramelized for optimal flavor.
2. ADD YOUR STAR VEGETABLE AND SIMMER IN STOCK AND CREAM UNTIL TENDER
Our star vegetable obviously was potatoes, but you can use whatever vegetable you like. The key here is simmering the vegetables right in the heavy cream instead of waiting until the end to add it. The vegetables will get extra creamy this way, but wait until they are completely cooked through and tender to move to the next step.
3. PUREE WELL AND STRAIN
You’ll want to puree your soup in batches in a high powered blender for optimal creaminess. Then strain the soup through a fine mesh strainer. It’s an extra step that you could skip if you really didn’t have time, but it will leave you with the most velvety soup ever.
4. SEASON WITH SALT AND ACID
While you’re soup should be well salted from the stock (and in this case bacon fat), the end is a great time to taste and add more salt if necessary. Creamy soups tend to be very rich, and a little bit of acid in the form of lemon juice at the end will cut some of that richness.
PUT YOUR OWN SPIN ON CREAMY SOUPS
Following these basic steps, you can make pretty much any creamy soup you like; butternut squash, parsnip, sweet pea, etc etc. For our baked potato soup recipe, we doctored these steps just a bit. We included leeks and rosemary with our aromatics, because they are two flavors that complement potatoes super well. And since this is a baked potato soup and we topped it with bacon, we went ahead and sautéed these aromatics in bacon fat instead of oil or butter to really drive home the bacon flavor. Then, while you can finish the soup with a simple drizzle of olive oil and squeeze of lemon, we topped with that crispy bacon, shredded cheddar and scallions just to remind you that it is a “baked” potato soup. It’s the perfect dish for a chilly day, and will warm you right to your bones.
The Creamiest Baked Potato Soup
Ingredients
- 4 cups chicken stock
- 1 pint heavy cream
- 8 oz bacon
- 3 lb potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes
- 1 leek, cleaned and trimmed and sliced into rounds
- 6 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 large onion, diced
- 3 sprigs rosemary
- 1 lemon
- salt and pepper to taste
For Serving
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
- 1 bunch scallions, sliced
Instructions
- Preheat a large heavy bottomed pot over medium heat. Cook bacon in batches until crispy, then remove and allow to drain on a paper towel.
- In the same pot in the bacon grease, sauté garlic, onions and leeks and rosemary stems until softened and translucent, 10 minutes.
- Add potatoes, cream and stock to pot. Simmer partially covered until potatoes are tender and mash easily, 25 minutes. Remove rosemary stems.
- Working in batches and being sure not to fill the blender more than halfway, blend the soup well. Add more stock if it gets too thick.
- Strain the soup through a fine mesh strainer, pushing it through with a soft spatula.
- Taste and season with more salt or pepper if needed. Add a squeeze of lemon juice and stir to combine.
- Serve soup with crumbled bacon, cheddar cheese and scallions.
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