Loaded Baked Potato Soup
A hearty soup that taste just like a loaded baked potato! It's made with tender smashed russet potatoes and their crispy fried skins, salty bacon, flavorful sharp cheddar and parmesan, and it's all in a rich base of creamy milk and sour cream. Delicious!
Servings: 6
Ingredients
- 3 1/4 lbs. russet potatoes (about 5 large, evenly in size for same bake time)
- 9 oz bacon, chopped
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 large bunch* green onions, sliced, light and green portions kept separate
- 1 Tbsp minced garlic (3 cloves)
- 3 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 3 cups milk (2% or whole)
- Salt and black pepper
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1 to 2 cups shredded sharp cheddar (white or yellow), plus more for serving
- 1/3 cup finely grated parmesan cheese
Optional Fried Potato Skins
- 3 Tbsp olive oil
- Reserved baked potato skins, from about 4 potatoes
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Scrub and rinse potatoes well under cool running water (you want them very clean as peels will be used later for the soup). Pierce each potato several times with a fork.
- Place potatoes in oven and bake until tender all the way through when pierced with a knife, about 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes. Remove from oven and let rest until cool enough to handle.
- Meanwhile in a large pot cook bacon over medium heat until it's just crisp, remove bacon while leaving rendered fat in pot. Transfer bacon to a paper towel lined plate.
- Return pot to low heat, add light portion of green onions and saute 1 minute. Add flour, cook and stir 30 seconds, add garlic and continue stirring 30 seconds longer.
- While stirring slowly pour in chicken broth, then pour in milk. Scoop out as much potato flesh (white portion) as possible while leaving just potato skins, reserve skins and transfer potato flesh to soup.
- Season soup with plenty of salt to taste and black pepper to taste. Bring soup to a light simmer over medium-high heat stirring frequently. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and simmer soup about 5 minutes stirring occasionally.
- Off heat use a potato masher to mash potatoes in soup into smaller chunks. Stir in sour cream, cheddar cheese, parmesan cheese. If desired stir in up to 1 cup more cheddar to boost cheesy flavor if desired.
- While soup is cooking you can prepare the potato skins. Use about 7 or 8 halves of them. Dice those into small pieces (first rows then squares).
- Heat the olive oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Add potato skins, season with salt and pepper and cook tossing occasionally, until golden brown and crisp, about 7 to 10 minutes.
- To serve the soup ladle soup into individual bowls, top with more cheddar, cooked bacon, fried potato skins, and the green onion greens.
Notes
- *Look for thicker green onions with a lot of white/light portion to it as this has much more flavor. Or you can just use two bunches of green onions so you can get enough of that light portion. You'll want nearly 1 cup of the sliced light portion.
- *Another option is to just use 1 cup finely chopped yellow onion and saute it for 6 minutes before adding the garlic and flour.