Can’t Have Enough Potato Soup | Recipe
American classic baked potato as a soup in a bread bowl? SAY WHAT? O0O
Tired of eating bake potatoes for days? Have plenty of potatoes sitting around? Well here is a recipe that will change your way of eating a baked potato!
Ingredients
- 4 Slices of Bacon
- 4 Tbsp of Unsalted Butter
- 1 medium size Yellow Onion
- 2–3 stalks of green onion
- 4 Tbsp of All Purpose Flour
- 3 cups of Whole Milk
- 3 cups of Chicken Stock
- 2–3 large Russet potatoes or 6–7 golden Yukon Potatoes (~2 cups of chopped potatoes)
- 1/4 cup of Sour Cream, with extra for topping
- 1 1/2 cups of Shredded Cheddar, with ¼ cup extra for cheese bread
- Sourdough bread bowl or loaf
Directions
Prepping
Chop Bacon into bite size pieces. Avoid cutting the bacon too tiny. They shrink once cooked. The goal is to turn them into crispy bacon bits, not burn bacon bits.
Thinly slice the green onion. Separate out the white and green parts. White part will be stir in with the soup and the green part will be for decorating.
Chop yellow onion into cubes. These will be blended up in the end, so don’t worry if you can’t chop them up too fine. Try to chop them around the same size for even cooking.
Peel and chop potatoes into tiny cubes, about ½” size. The smaller the cubes the faster they cook.
To make a sourdough bowl, cut out a square section on the top of the bread bowl. Avoid cutting all the way through the bowl. Afterward, carefully scoop out the square top section. Remove some breading underneath the square section to make a hole for the soup. Save these extra bread and cut them into cubes. They will be turned into cheese bread cubes!
Make Soup
Crisp up the bacon. Into a cold pot, put in the bacon, and turn on the heat to medium-high. Cook bacon into lightly dark golden, remove, and put onto a plate lined with paper towel. To learn how to make perfect bacon bits, check out the Tips and Tricks section. Drain out the bacon fat into a small bowl. DO NOT DISCARD THIS IN THE SINK. Bacon grease can clog your drainage. Just let it solidify and discard in the trash. Don’t wipe off the pot. The tiny amount of bacon oil make the soup tastier.
Add in the butter, white green onion part, and yellow onion. Cook into onion soften and translucent.
Add in flour. Make sure to whisk/stir constantly during this process. We do not want flour crumbs in our soup.
Once the flour started to brown, about ~1 minutes, add in the milk and stir.
Add in the chicken stock and stir.
Add in the potatoes and cooked until the potatoes are cooked. To test whether the potatoes are cooked, poke one potato cube with a fork. If the potato cube split into two pieces easily, then they are cooked.
Pour the soup into a blender. Blend away until the soup turns creamy and smooth.
Pour the blended soup back into the pot. Bring to a boil. Season with pepper and salt to taste. Add in the cheese and sour cream. Turn off the heat and serve.
Prep Bread Bowl
While waiting for the soup to came back to a boil after blending it, prep the bread bowls/cubes. Drizzle on some olive oil. Sprinkle on some cheese, black pepper, and salt. Baked at 350F for 5–10 minutes or until lightly toasted and the cheese melt.
Serve
Pour the soup into the bread bowl. Top it off with some a scoop of sour cream. Sprinkle on some cheese and bacon bits. And why not? Sprinkle on some black pepper too! Enjoy and don’t forget to leave me a comment if you make it.
Tips and Tricks
If you have any tips, leave me a comment below. I love to learn from you guys as well.
- Starting the bacon cooking process in a cold pot in the beginning make the meat crispier. This is because the cold pan renders the bacon fats and allow the bacon to be cooked in its own fat. Basically deep frying the bacon. Remove your cooked bacon when it is lightly-medium golden. Don’t wait until it is dark golden as it the bacon will still continue to cooks for a couple second.
- To avoid oil splashing onto the stove top while cooking the bacon, cover the pot with a lid. Let it cook for 2–3 minutes before opening the lid and stirring the bacon. Be caution. Water droplet, formed on the lid due to condensation, might drop into your hot bacon grease and splash out when the lid is open. Just open the lid slowly.
- Can’t get access to a sourdough bowl? Just cut sourdough loaf into cubes. Sprinkle on some cheese and toasted. Serve the soup in a bowl with cheese bread cubes on the side for dipping or to sprinkle on top of the soup.
- If you have a Trader Joe around you, get their mini sourdough bread bowl. They are so cute and is a perfect one portion serving size. Also, their cheese bread loaf goes well with this recipe as well. Just cut it into cubes and toast it. No need to add extra cheese on top.
Inspiration
It has been raining a lot over here in California, and what happen when the weather is cold and raining? I craved for soups. While searching for soup recipes, I came upon Laura Vitale’s Baked Potato Soup recipe and boy was it good. It is literally a baked potato in form of a soup.
However, I didn’t really like the way how chunky the soup turned out. One thing that you will learn about me is that I love love love creamy soups. Yep, they are NOT the healthiest thing, but they are so worth it and make it looks like you spend all day in the kitchen prepping it. Furthermore, I didn’t like how the pancetta lose its crunchiness in the soup. After all, we worked so hard to get it extra crispy in the beginning and then they softened in the soup. What a waste of effort!
My modification is to make the soup creamy by blending it up. Topped it off with bacon bites for that extra crunchy protein. If you are going to have a baked potato, might as well have it fully loaded right? And like it was not enough starch, I served it inside of a bread bowl with cheesy breads on the side. It was starch on starch, but I guaranteed you will like it, and it makes a good blog photo too.
