Creamy Loaded Potato Soup

This Creamy Loaded Potato Soup is rich, filling, and full of tasty loaded baked potato flavor! It has been so cold where I live lately, and a warm, hearty bowl of potato soup with cheese and bacon is just the satisfying comfort food I’ve been craving! I love eating this soup for lunch or dinner, and it pairs perfectly with a side salad or fresh veggies with dip. Better still, a satisfying cup of this Creamy Loaded Potato Soup is just 232 calories or 5 WW Points (or 8 Points if following the diabetic WW plan). To view your current WW Points for this recipe and track it in the WW app, click here!

Recipe Notes

• Potatoes: I use and recommend using russet potatoes in this soup. Two pounds of potatoes is about 3-4 medium to large potatoes. You’ll want to wash and peel your potatoes before chopping them up to use in the soup!
• Bacon: I almost always use center cut bacon in my recipes, because it’s just a leaner cut of regular bacon, so it tastes amazing and crisps up nicely. In the recipe instructions I have you toss some of the bacon in with the soup and leave some out to use as topping, but if you want your bacon to stay crispy you can use it all as topping rather than mixing some into the soup.
• Cheese: I think cheddar cheese works perfectly in this, but if you have another kind on hand or want to try something else, feel free. Colby Jack or Pepper Jack would both be tasty. If you want your cheese to melt more easily, you can shred your own from a brick instead of buying it pre-shredded, but either kind will work!
• Chives: I love the freshness and mild onion flavor a sprinkle of chives adds, but you can omit this or substitute scallions if you don’t have them.
• Blending: I like my potato soup to be smooth and creamy, so I highly recommend blending this soup as the recipe instructs! I love using my immersion blender/stick blender for this because it’s so easy and mess-free to blend it right in the pot. However, if you don’t own an immersion blender, you can definitely transfer the soup to a regular blender in a couple batches and then return it to the pot.
• Re-heating: This Creamy Loaded Potato Soup reheats really well! It’s already a thick soup, but since it continues to thicken up as it cools, I like to add a little water to mine when I reheat the leftovers. This will thin it out a bit! I don’t really have a measurement to share, I just hold my bowl under the tap and turn it on for a quick splash and then mix it in before microwaving to reheat.

More Tasty Lightened-Up Soup Recipes

For more tasty, lightened up soup recipes like this Creamy Loaded Potato Soup, check out my Creamy Chicken and Gnocchi Soup, Sausage and Tortellini Tomato Soup, Butternut Squash Soup, Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup, Black Bean Soup, Beef Taco Soup, Buffalo Chicken Soup, Slow Cooker Beef and Barley Soup, Chicken Corn Chowder, Zuppa Toscana, Broccoli Cheddar Soup, Italian Wedding Soup, Cheeseburger Soup, Spaghetti and Meatball Soup, and more in the soup section of my recipe index!

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Creamy Loaded Potato Soup

Prep Time: 15 minutes mins

Cook Time: 45 minutes mins

Total Time: 1 hour hr

Calories: 232kcal

This Creamy Loaded Potato Soup is rich, filling, and flavorful with cheese, sour cream, and bacon!

Yield: 8 (1 cup) servings

Ingredients

• 2 lbs russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1” cubes
• 1 teaspoon salt, divided
• 6 slices center cut bacon, (I use Oscar Mayer)
• 3 tablespoons light butter, (I use Land O’Lakes light butter spread with canola oil in the tub)
• ½ medium onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 3 cups low sodium chicken broth
• 2 cups fat free half-and-half
• ½ teaspoon black pepper
• ⅓ cup light sour cream
• 3 oz shredded 2% milk sharp cheddar cheese
• 1 tablespoon sliced chives

Instructions

• Place the potato chunks in a Dutch oven or soup pot and add water until it fills to about an inch over the tops of the potatoes. Add ½ teaspoon of the salt and place on a burner over high heat until boiling. Once boiling*, continue to cook uncovered for 10 minutes. Check a potato with afork to ensure tenderness and then drain the potatoes into a colander. Transfer the hot potatoes to a bowl and mash a bit with a fork or potato masher. Set aside.
• *While the potatoes are boiling, cook the bacon to crisp according to package instructions, and then set on paper towels to drain any excess grease. Chop the bacon and set aside.
• Once the potatoes are done, add the butter to the same pot and bring over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 4-5 minutes until the onion is softened. Add the garlic and cook for an additional 30-60 seconds. Whisk in the flour a little at a time until fully combined and let the “paste” that forms cook for a minute. Slowly whisk in the broth a little at a time until the mixture is completely combined. Add the half-and-half a bit at a time and whisk into the mixture until creamy. Raise the heat to med-high, whisking occasionally, until the mixture thickens and lightly bubbles. Reduce heat to a simmer.
• Add the cooked potatoes to the pot along with the remaining ½ teaspoon of salt and the ½ teaspoon of black pepper. Stir together and remove from heat. Use an immersion blender (or transfer soup to a regular blender in batches) directly in the pot to blend the soup until smooth.
• Add the sour cream, shredded cheddar, and about 2/3 of the chopped bacon and stir until the sour cream and cheese has smoothly melted into the soup. Serve warm and garnish each cup of soup with a sprinkle of the remaining bacon and chopped chives.

Notes

To view your current WW Points for this recipe and track it in the WW app, click here!

WW Points per (1 cup) serving: 5* (SP calculated using the recipe builder in the WW app)

*a serving is 8 Points if following the diabetic Weight Watchers plan)

Nutrition Information per (1 cup) serving:
232 calories, 30 g carbs, 4 g sugars, 8 g fat, 4 g saturated fat, 11 g protein, 2 g fiber, 404 mg sodium (from myfitnesspal.com)

Weight Watchers Points Plus:
6 per (1 cup) serving (PP calculated using a Weight Watchers PointsPlus calculator and the nutrition info)

Adapted from The Cozy Cook and Ina Garten

Author: Emily Bites

Course: Soup

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Bacon, Lightened Up, Weight Watchers, WW Soup