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
Cook the 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. This should only take about a minute.
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.
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.
Variations
- Make it in the slow cooker: Make my Crockpot Potato Soup Recipe and come home to a warm and delicious dinner ready to enjoy.
- Swap the bacon for ham: Use ham instead of bacon like in my Ham and Potato Soup.
- Vegetarian: To make a vegetarian potato soup, you can use butter as your fat in the roux instead of bacon. Melt a little less than two tablespoons of butter in your pot to sauté your vegetables, and then continue with the recipe as written.
- Make a vegan potato soup: If you follow a vegan diet, you could replace the butter with oil, and replace the milk at the end with unflavored soy creamer or coconut milk.
- Make it gluten-free: Because we make a roux with flour, this soup is not gluten-free. To make it gluten-free, after cooking the bacon, drain off any excess grease and skip the flour step altogether. Instead, whisk cornstarch with a bit of warm water or broth from the soup to make a slurry, then stir it into the soup during the final minutes of cooking. This will thicken the soup without affecting its creamy texture.
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.
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, see note 1 to make this 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 see note 2 to make this gluten free (40 grams)
- 2 cups chicken stock
- 2 pounds russet potatoes peeled and diced, see note 3 (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
Recipe Video
Notes
- If you want to make a vegetarian or vegan soup, skip the bacon and sauté the vegetables in 2 tablespoons of butter or oil.
- To make it gluten-free, after cooking the bacon, drain off any excess grease and skip the flour step altogether. Instead, whisk cornstarch with a bit of warm water or broth from the soup to make a slurry, then stir it into the soup during the final minutes of cooking. This will thicken the soup without affecting its creamy texture.
- 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.
Carole Cihal says
I added about 1/3 cup Sherry and fresh mushrooms to the bacon potato soup. Wow! It was totally delicious with a little kick !
Wilma "Sam" Manasse" says
Love soups and these I’ll try soon. Thanks, I’m signing up for your newsletter
Denise Jordan says
Can I substitute coconut milk for regular? I need to be dairy free.
Hi Denise! I haven’t tried this with coconut milk, so I don’t know how it will turn out. If you give it a try, let me know how it goes!
George Belicka says
This is an awesome recipe. We doubled the recipe with 4 1/2 lbs. of fresh potatoes, then added 1 1/2 lbs. of baked potatoes that were previously baked.
Soup is nice and creamy and thick.
Nice fall soup.
Thanks.
I’m so happy you liked it George!
Rebecca Simpson says
Tried this today …. very very good. Will definitely make again.
I’m so happy to hear that you liked it Rebecca!
Vaughn Slavin says
I am not much of a recipe follower except when it comes to how much baking powder and so on to make a biscuit rise properly. I followed this recipe pretty much to the letter. Since I use instant milk for milk in recipes, I made the two cups of milk with chicken stock. I added a couple of cups of cubed ham at the end of the cooking just because it sounded good. This recipe is awesome! Cooking the potatoes in the vegetable Roux was something I had never done, and in the process I learned what I can do to improve other recipes! I added no cheese, and yet the soup turned out so creamy it was like Velveta. Thank You so much for the education and awesome recipe!
I’m so happy you liked it!
David J says
I had trouble with the method of cooking the potatoes in the roux. For me, the mixture was too thick to boil with much movement, and even the addition of another cup of stock failed to help much. I resorted to adding the milk and simmering very slowly to get things softened up. The initial taste was good, but quite subtle. I added a bit of thyme, white pepper, and a little smoked paprika, which really made it sing. I liked the chunky texture and will give it another go, probably reducing the amount of flour and/or adding additional stock to get that roux/stock mixture bubbling a bit more. Thank you for sharing this recipe!
I’m sorry that you struggled with this one, David. Did you happen to use thick cut bacon? If not, that could explain the thickness of the roux.
Christina says
I also had the same issue. In my experience, 1/3 cup of flour needs a lot of liquid to become anything approaching a soup. With just the 2 cups of stock mine was like paste and would barely boil before burning, so I also added an extra 1-1.5 cups of stock. Will try the thyme, pepper and paprika for a bit of extra flavor.
Kristle Smerechanski says
I also had the same issue so I doubled the stock amount.
pauline morris says
WE MAKE THIS ALL THE TIME!!! I ADD 2 CANS OF CREAM OF CELERY SOUP IT IS AWESOME IF IT IS WATERY I TAKE OUT 1/2 CUP OF THE POTATOES AND MASH THEM IT DOES THE TRICK. I ALSO COOK ABOUT ONE POUND OF BACON BUT I DON’T PUT IT IN THE SOUP WE WAIT UNTIL WE ARE GOING TO EAT IT SO IT WILL STAY CRISPY.
I’m so glad you like it Pauline!
Mary says
GREAT flavor. Next time I will cook the potatoes (at least part way) in chicken broth separately, that way I won’t have to watch it so closely once the potatoes are added to the dutch oven.
So glad you liked it Mary!