This Cream Cheese Potato Soup is easily the most popular soup recipe for my family and always a hit with friends! Eat it as-is, or add bacon or sausage and you’ve got a warm, complete, delicious meal in a bowl!
Originally posted February 2012, updated January 2021.
A few days ago, I found a 20 lb. bag of red potatoes on clearance for $3.99. Since we didn’t have any red potatoes, we love red potatoes and they’re usually way more expensive than that, I grabbed them!
However, when I got home, I discovered that I already had quite a few Idaho potatoes, some golden potatoes, and 2 bags of sweet potatoes already here. Um…yeah. Maybe we didn’t need more potatoes after all. Maybe I should be more diligent about knowing what I already have on hand. Oh well.
My next task…figuring out a way for us to eat lots of potatoes so they don’t all go bad! Anyway, my hubby suggested that I make potato soup. But I didn’t have all the ingredients to make my usual, so I started scouring the internet for a new recipe.
I landed here…with a knock-off recipe for Panera’s Cream Cheese Potato Soup. That looks great, but we needed more (as in, enough to feed all 7 8 of us) and that recipe didn’t quite suffice.
I searched a little more and I ended up fusing 2 or 3 different recipes. It’s very close to the one above, except with a few tweeks…and more (not ingredients…but quantity…hehe)!
And I have to say…it might have been the best potato soup we’ve ever had! It was superb!
This soup is so delicious, you can eat it as-is without any add-ins or toppings and you will not be disappointed. However, if you’re a little extra (as I am), you may way to kick it up a notch. Here are things we’ve tried:
Add-ins and toppings for Cream Cheese Potato Soup:
- Our favorite way to serve this soup is topped with bacon pieces and shredded cheddar cheese.
- If you want a heartier soup, crumble and fry a pound of breakfast sausage. Then drain it and stir it in while the soup is simmering. You will be blown away at how delicious it is.
- Once we added chopped ham to our soup – also amazing (although sausage is our favorite, by far!).
- Other toppings I’ve seen for this soup are green onions and sour cream.
January 2021 update: since writing this post almost 11 years ago, this continues to be our favorite (by far) potato soup recipe.
Print
Cream Cheese Potato Soup
- Prep Time: 10
- Cook Time: 50
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 12 1x
Description
This Cream Cheese Potato Soup is easily the most popular soup recipe for my family and always a hit with friends! Eat it as-is, or add bacon or sausage and you’ve got a warm, complete, delicious meal in a bowl!
Ingredients
- 10–12 cups of chicken broth**
- 6 lbs. of red potatoes, peeled and diced
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1/4 cup finely diced onion
- 1 tsp. seasoned salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper (optional)
- 1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper (optional)
- (2) 8 oz. bricks of cream cheese
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- 6–8 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled
- green onion (optional)
- **Instead of chicken broth, I started using and prefer to use Better than Bouillon Chicken Base mixed with water. I use about 1 Tbsp. of Better than Bouillon per 4 cups of water… maybe a little more or less!?
Instructions
- First, peel and dice the potatoes and the onion.
- In a (very) large pot, add potatoes and spices to broth and boil for about 20 minutes.
- When potatoes are fork tender, mash some with a potato masher (you can make it as creamy or lumpy as you like).
- Add cream cheese (cut into slices) and heavy cream to the mix and stir until melted and creamy.
- Turn heat down to low and simmer 20-30 minutes more until thickened. See suggestions for toppings and add-ins below.
- This soup will thicken up significantly overnight if you have leftovers. I like to thin it back out with a little milk when warming it.
Notes
- Our favorite way to serve this soup is topped with bacon pieces and shredded cheddar cheese.
- If you want a heartier soup, crumble and fry a pound of breakfast sausage. Then drain it and stir it in while the soup is simmering. You will be blown away at how delicious it is.
- Once we added chopped ham to our soup – also amazing (although sausage is our favorite, by far!).
- Other toppings I’ve seen for this soup are green onions and sour cream.
- Category: Soup
Keywords: cream cheese, soup, potato soup, soup recipe, potatoes
More soup recipes to try:
“Kitchen Sink” Minestrone Soup
The red pepper gave an unexpected and nice bite, although I think I will use just slightly less next time. I like the dilled potato soup I usually make a little better, but this was also very good.
Can this be frozen
This sounds delicious. I’m trying it tonight!
★★★★★