This homemade potato soup recipe makes the creamiest, most delicious soup. It’s easy, loaded with potatoes and veggies, and the broth is so creamy!
This is my favorite potato soup because it is pure comfort food, but not so rich that you can’t enjoy it regularly. Joanne is a major fan of this soup! We like to make this all year around and it is ridiculously easy to whip up for a quick tasty dinner.
I also love that you have two options for serving. You can keep it on the brothy side (like our photos) or blend it for a thick, creamy soup. If you love this here are two other favorites, see our sausage and potato soup or this potato and leek soup.
Key Ingredients
- Potatoes: You can use any potato in our recipe, but I highly recommend Yukon Gold potatoes. There’s no need to peel them, and when cooked, they are buttery and almost melt in your mouth.
- Veggies: This is potato soup, but we love adding a few cups of extra veggies. Onions are a must, carrots add color and some sweetness, and chopped celery adds flavor and texture.
- Garlic and rosemary: Make this the tastiest potato soup I’ve made. I’ve found some potato soup recipes too rich or lacking in flavor, but that’s not a problem with this easy potato soup. I love rosemary, garlic, and potato together.
- Butter and flour: The combination of butter and flour thickens our soup. Unsalted butter or salted butter works just fine for this recipe. You will need to season with salt to taste. I’ve added tips for omitting the flour in the recipe below for gluten-free potato soup.
- Stock or broth: For the best potato soup, use good-quality chicken stock from the store or homemade. When reaching for store-bought broth, we go for low sodium. We also look for a store-bought broth that’s darker in color (usually means more flavor), and since it usually has more of a backbone, we like to buy boxed bone broth (we use homemade bone broth sometimes, too).
- Cream: We add a little cream to this soup. The chicken stock adds flavor, and the cream makes the broth creamy and more luxurious. You can also try half-and-half, sour cream, or plain yogurt.
- Cheese: This is optional, but if you have some on hand, it adds a lovely richness to the soup. Use sharp cheddar for cheesy potato soup that rivals cheesy baked potatoes. We also love stirring in Gruyère or parmesan.
Find the full recipe with measurements below.
How to Make the Best Potato Soup
Tip 1: Cook veggies in flavored butter. We love to cook our vegetables with garlic and rosemary in butter. The kitchen will smell incredible and this adds so much flavor.
Tip 2: Thicken with a little flour. So that our soup thickens nicely, you’ll stir in some flour and cook until toasty. The mixture of butter and flour helps thicken the soup. Then, it’s time to add the broth and potatoes and simmer until tender, which takes about 20 minutes.
Tip 3: Finding the perfect blend. Finish by stirring in cream and some cheese if you plan to add it. You can serve the brothy soup or blend some to thicken it even more. I like to blend a portion of the soup (about 2 cups). Then, I add the blended mixture back into the soup.
What to Serve with Potato Soup
I love serving this potato soup with bread for dipping. A few favorites from the blog are this homemade focaccia bread, this roasted garlic bread, and our beer bread! Consider a light salad on the side to balance the soup’s richness. I love this strawberry balsamic salad or this easy chopped salad.
As for topping potato soup, I love scattering over fresh herbs (especially chives), but you can add more cheese, cooked bacon, sour cream, or crispy fried shallots.
More of Our Favorite Potato Recipes
- German Potato Salad (served warm!)
- Roasted Fingerling Potatoes
- Easy Breakfast Potatoes
- No Mayo Potato Salad
- Mashed Potatoes (our family’s favorite variation)
Easy Creamy Potato Soup
- PREP
- COOK
- TOTAL
We love this easy potato soup recipe with potatoes and veggies simmered in a creamy broth. For the best potato soup, use Yukon Gold potatoes. They have thin skins, so it is not necessary to peel them. They also become buttery and soft when cooked.
Watch Us Make the Recipe
You Will Need
1 ½ pounds (680g) potatoes, peeled and chopped, 4 cups
1 medium onion, chopped, 2 cups
2 medium carrots, chopped, 1 cup
2 stalks celery, chopped, 1 cup
1 tablespoon minced garlic, 3 to 4 cloves
3 tablespoons butter or olive oil
1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary or ¼ teaspoon dried
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 cups chicken stock or vegetable broth
1 bay leaf
Salt and fresh ground black pepper
¼ cup cream, half and half, sour cream, or plain yogurt
1 cup (2 ounces) shredded cheese, optional
For serving (optional): Chives or scallions, sour cream, crumbled cooked bacon, fried shallots, hot sauce
Directions
1Melt the butter over medium heat in a large, heavy-bottomed pot (like a Dutch oven). When the butter melts, stir in the onions, carrots, and celery. Cook, stirring occasionally, until they begin to soften, 5 to 6 minutes.
2Stir in the garlic, rosemary, red pepper flakes, ½ teaspoon of salt, and ¼ teaspoon of black pepper, and then cook, stirring everything around the pot, for 30 seconds.
3Scatter the flour over the vegetables and cook, stirring, until it looks medium blonde in color, about 1 minute. It will smell toasty, like browned butter.
4Slowly whisk in 2 cups of the stock, ensuring no lumps of flour remain. It will be thick.
5Pour in the remaining stock and whisk until blended. Increase the heat to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.
6Add the potatoes and bay leaf, then cook, partially covered, until the potatoes are fork-tender, about 20 minutes.
7Turn the heat down to low, remove the bay leaf, and stir in the cream and cheese.
8Taste for seasoning, then adjust with more salt and pepper as needed.
9Serve with fresh herbs on top. For a thick and blended soup, use a potato masher to mash or an immersion blender to blend about half of the potatoes, and then stir back into the soup.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Storing: Potato soup lasts stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days. You can also freeze potato soup for up to 3 months. Thaw the soup overnight in the refrigerator before reheating. When you reheat potato soup, it might look a bit separated. Don’t worry. Just use a whisk to blend it back together.
- Make it gluten-free: Do not use the flour and instead whisk a tablespoon of cornstarch into the cream (or use milk) and add it to the soup (the cornstarch acts as a thickener). Or leave out flour and the cornstarch and blend about half of the soup to thicken it.
- Vegan potato soup: Use plant-based butter or olive oil, veggie broth, and skip the cream at the end.
- The nutrition facts provided below are estimates.
My husband said that this is the best potato soup he’s tasted. I tend to agree!
Thank you for this nourishing soup. I am making it soon. It shouldn’t cost much either. Cleveland Ohio
Made this today. I put a couple of slices of thick cut bacon instead of butter. Absolutely delicious! I will be making this again and again!
Great idea with the bacon swap! So happy you loved the recipe! 🙂
Yummy! 2nd’s please. Enuff said.
So easy to make and so good. My son asked several times were I got recipe from.
We are so happy you and your son enjoyed the soup!
I made this for lunch today and from start to finish took about an hour. I used skin on red potatoes. This was easy and delicious. I put a dollop of Greek yogurt and some cheddar cheese on mine but my husband didn’t add a thing. We both loved it! I like that this is a lighter version of most potato soup recipes I’ve come across. This is a keeper for sure! Thank you J and A!
That’s wonderful, Cindy! I love your addition of Greek yogurt and cheese!
This potato soup is the best! Very easy to make and didn’t have to modify it.
So happy you think so, Kimberly.
Made this tonight. Super delicious. I did add a cup of cubed ham.
Hi Cathryn, Thank you so much. I’m glad you enjoyed it, and adding ham sounds like a perfect touch. Love hearing how you made it your own.
This was tasty I did sub leak for the onion I thought it was a bit bland but that may be because he guestimates then he went back and measured with his heart and his heart was bit spicy! Once he upped the spices it turned out beautifully
“his heart was a bit spicy” — love that! I love your swap of leek (this soup could take both onion and leek next time and it would be excellent). Also, if you love leeks and potatoes, I crave this leek potato soup recipe often.
Delicious! I make this on repeat! Thanks for sharing.
I finished the soup of with pepper boursin About 75grams. Also cream. Love this soup.
Wow, fantastic recipe. ALL ingredients are from my gardens. Started of with a few slices of bacon with two tablespoons of butter but everything else followed the recipe. A definite repeater. Thanks
OMG, best potato soup recipe ever!! And so quick and easy. Thank you for sharing your recipe 🙂 I used vegetable broth to keep it vegetarian. Everyone loved it at my house.
You were right. Some ground rosemary did the trick.
My daughter and I made this for a friend who is ill. Of course, we had to taste it before we gave it to someone. It is wonderful. We are making some for dinner tonight.
Love it! So happy that you enjoyed the soup 🙂
This is the best soup!
I made this tonight and it was fantastic. Thanks you for the delicious recipe.
Love this recipe! Hate rosemary try it with fresh tarragon omg awesome!! I cannot keep this soup in my freezer. Make a double batch each time and my husband can’t get enough. Great soup recipe!!
Never EVER would I have thought of ROSEMARY in potato soup. Incredible! Like many others this will become my go to recipe to follow exactly or to use as a guideline. It was fabulous with homemade hearty whole wheat bread during a snowstorm. Thanks for sharing this!
Delicious soup, I made some substitutes to the veg list as just went with what we had (carrots, sweet potato, parsnips, mushroom, onion) but it turned out very tasty and filling
Opps, I didn’t have any rosemary so I added thyme. Made the recipe and added some extras…..a can of corn, 3 gruyere and garlic sausages cut up (instead of bacon) and i melted in a round of Boursin garlic & fine herb cheese instead of other cheese. I also added 2 extra cups of chicken stock.
Overall m really enjoying this yummy soup. Especially on a cold and snowy long weekend.
This soup is delicious and I’m making it again today. I used my immersion blender on about half of the soup which was perfect. If I had an assistant I could prep in 10 minutes! but sadly no assistant for me. Hopefully it will go faster today since I’ve made it once before.
I loved this soup recipe!!! I am adding it to my collection Thank you
All excellent thank you
Nothing is more comforting than a bowl of potato soup. I make several different recipes through the fall and winter. Love the kale and sausage ones. But this one is now at the top of the list. I think the other veggies, the garlic and red pepper flakes really bring the flavor up a notch. And, I can never say no to cheese! OK, now I’m hungry for more just writing about it 🙂 Thanks!
Made this soup and it’s fantastic. Made garlic bread with it and will be adding to my recipe collection. Thank you!
Excellent!
I made this soup tonight and it’s the first potato soup I’ve made that I enjoyed. Was so delicious I skipped the cheese, it didn’t need it.
Wanted a straight forward potato soup recipe I could make with the ingredients I have on hand and WOW! Followed the recipe almost exactly (more sour cream, less shredded cheese) and it turned out so flavorful. Very satisfying on a cold, dreary day. Will definitely be a repeat recipe.
I often struggle finding great recipes on the internet as many sound good but don’t deliver the taste I want while being reasonably healthy. This did not disappoint! Delicious on a cold day, easy to make and full of vegetables. I did not have rosemary so substituted oregano and thyme. Agree with another reviewer who said prep time is more than stated. To wash and prep veggies it was 30 minutes. Worth it.
I made this for dinner tonight and it was delicious. It all came together nicely and the kitchen smelled so good on a cold evening. The soup was the happy ending to the day.
That’s wonderful, Jean! Thanks for coming back!
Make sure you cut the pieces of potato small, otherwise it takes longer to cook. Also my prep took way longer than 10 minutes.
Thanks for the feedback, Peggy. We really appreciate it.
Great soup! I omitted the rosemary added1/2 teaspoon Tarragon and 2 bay leaves. Mini rainbow carrots in lieu of regular carrots. Excellent soup! Try it!
This was a fantastic recipe. I didn’t have stock so I threw bacon pieces in to cook with it for extra flavor. I also used chipotle powder instead of crushed red pepper because it was the closest thing I had, though I think it would be amazing with crushed red pepper. It is amazing. I had never dreamed of making a roux with the butter-softened vegetables.
So good! Came together really quick and is really delicious. Just be sure to add enough salt at the end and it will all come together perfectly!
This was a really wonderful recipe. I added a roasted hatch chile and some grilled corn. Fantastic 🙂