Description
This Red Potato Soup with Cream Cheese is easily the most popular soup recipe for my family and is 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
Units
Scale
- 10 cups of water
- 3 heaping tablespoons of chicken base* Better than Bouillon is my favorite!
- 5 lbs. of red potatoes, peeled and diced
- 1/4 cup finely diced onion
- 1 tsp. seasoned salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper (optional)
- 1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper (optional)
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- (2) 8 oz. bricks of cream cheese
- 6-8 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled
- green onion (optional)
- **Instead of water and chicken base, you can use 10 cups of chicken broth.
Instructions
- First, peel and dice the potatoes and dice the onion.
- Pour the water into a very large soup pot.
- Whisk in the chicken base.
- Add potatoes, onions, and spices to broth and mix up really well.
- Boil for about 20 minutes.
- When potatoes are fork-tender, use a stick blender to slightly blend up the mixture. OR if you don't have a stick blender, take out one cup of soup, mash it up with a fork or potato masher, and stir it back into the pot. You can make it as creamy or lumpy as you like.
- Melt the cream cheese in the microwave in 15-second intervals until completely soft and creamy. It should take around 1 minute.
- Add melted cream cheese 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.
- If you're using chicken base for the first time, I 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!?
- Prep Time: 10
- Cook Time: 50
- Category: Soup
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
