Loaded Baked Potato Soup

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Loaded Baked Potato Soup
Published February 14, 2024

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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!

This cozy soup is everything you love about a cheese laden baked potato and more. You get all those layers of flavor built into the goodness of a soul warming, homestyle, sip-able soup.

This soup recipe begins with actual baked potatoes. Many recipes will just go the route of chopping and boiling the potatoes but I prefer the baked method so we can skip the step of peeling and chopping the potatoes, and rather just scoop the interiors out after baking and mash them into the soup. Plus it just feels more authentic if we are going to call it “baked potato soup” lets use the real deal.

The potato skins are chopped up into small pieces (after baking) and then pan fried for extra crispiness. They are a favorite ingredient to the soup among family members, everyone just likes to eat them on their own because they are so good!

Just be sure to load up on all of those various toppings when serving the soup as it will add a lot of the flavor. And don’t drain the fat from the bacon as this also builds up flavor and adds richness to the soup.

Baked Potato Soup Recipe Ingredients

Russet potatoes: I don’t recommend other types of potatoes here. Russets work the best for baked potato soup as they break down and help build up a thicker soup base.
Bacon: You’ll use both the cooked bacon and rendered fat for the soup. The fat is used to make the roux rather than butter and it makes the soup so good.
All-purpose flour: Flour is used to thicken the base of the soup.
Green onions: A yellow onion can be subsituted you’ll just want to chop it up fine so it cooks quickly.
Garlic: This is the secret ingredient not common to baked potatoes but it really helps build up the overall flavor.
Low-sodium chicken broth: Even better would be homemade chicken stock if you have some on hand in the freezer.
Cheddar cheese and parmesan cheese: I felt it lacked a little something with cheddar alone so a boost of aged parmesan really made it shine.
Olive oil: This is used to fry the potato skins and help them achieve a more satisfying crisp texture.

Can I Use Leftover Baked Potatoes?

If you have leftover baked potatoes in the fridge those will also work in this recipe. You’ll need 5 large ones.

How to Make the Soup Gluten Free

If you need to make this gluten free substitute white rice flour for the all-purpose flour.
Then just ensure other packaged ingredients are made in gluten-free facilities.

How to Make Baked Potato Soup

1. Prepare potatoes for baking: 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.

2. Bake potatoes til soft: 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.

3. Cook bacon: 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.

4. Saute aromatics, make roux: Return pot to low heat, add light portions of green onions and saute 1 minute. Add flour, cook and stir 30 seconds, add garlic and continue stirring 30 seconds longer.

5. Add liquids and potato flesh: 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.

6. Smash potatoes, add other dairy: Off heat use a potato masher to mash potatoes 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.

7: Chop and fry potato skins: While soup is cooking you can prepare the potato skins (using about 3/4 of them). Dice them 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.

8. Serve loaded with toppings: To serve the soup ladle soup into individual bowls, top with more cheddar, cooked bacon, fried potato skins, and some of the green onion greens.

How to Store and Reheated the Soup

Baked potato soup can be stored in the fridge for up to 4 days.
Thin soup with more broth or milk as needed, it will thicken over time from all the starches in the potatoes.
It can be rewarmed in individual servings in the microwave, or larger servings in a pot on the stove top over medium-low heat stirring frequently.
Do not rewarm in a slow cooker as this isn’t food safe and would make the cheddar separate anyway.

Can You Freeze Baked Potato Soup?

Unfortunately it is not recommended to freeze baked potato soup.
This is because upon thawing the potatoes become grainy and the dairy tends to separate.
If needed you can halve the recipe if you don’t need as many servings.