Loaded Baked Potato Soup

Loaded Baked Potato Soup

Comfort Food... Simple and Tasty

Cool weather is coming, and with that comes soup and comfort foods.  When I was a kid, my grandmother used to take me out to this restaurant every now and again and we would get soup and salad.  I always would get potato soup.  I loved it... and I still do, but I have never tried to make it myself - until yesterday.  My daughter, who just turned 21 months, also likes potato as well as all the fixings for baked potato so I thought why not try loaded baked potato soup.  We live in a one meal house, meaning I don't make anything for dinner that is not eaten by everyone in the house, so soup can be a challenge because we haven't mastered using our utensils just yet - but I gave it a shot. 

So I started the soup around 9am on the stove top and it was done by noon.  Then I let it sit until my husband came home from work.  At dinner time, I just had to warm it up and make the garlic toast and potato fixings.  My husband had two bowl fulls and took another into work today for lunch!  He definitely enjoyed it, and as for my daughter she liked it too - but I can't put as much stock in that since she loves anything with bacon in it!  This was very easy and I believe something that could be done in your crock pot if you have a busy day ahead and want to come home to dinner waiting for you.  Also, often when I make soup for dinner we get hungry around 9:30 - but this stuck to our ribs so to speak so neither of us were looking for snacks post dinner.  Give it a try, I think you'll enjoy it!

Ingredients:

8 large potatoes

1 medium onion

1 tablespoon of chopped fresh garlic (about 2 cloves)

1 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 1/2 tsp of salt

1 tsp pepper

1/2 tablespoon of parsley

1 bay leaf

1 1/2 boxes (32 oz each) of chicken stock - this is approx - you will be covering the potatoes with chicken stock.

1 1/2 cups of no fat half and half

1 1/2 cups of skim shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 cup of light sour cream

Toppings:

sour cream

cooked and chopped bacon

shredded cheddar cheese

scallions chopped

To start, in a large stock pot, I used my large calphalon pot because I like the way it keeps the heat even and the holds heat, warm your olive oil and add the chopped garlic and chopped onion.  Cook your onion until it is translucent in color.  While your onion and garlic are cooking wash, peel, and chop your potatoes into about 1/4 inch pieces.  Then add them.  Cover the potato with your chicken stock - it takes about a box and a half.  I used Progresso chicken stock because I like the richness in flavour and I also use the low sodium.  Add your salt, pepper, bay leaf and parsley. Cook this on low for about two hours, until your potatoes are soft and ready to be mashed.  Then using a potato masher, mash the potatoes, this makes your soup thick.  I would not recommend using an immersion blender because you still want some chunks of potato in your soup.  Now add your shredded cheese, half and half, and sour cream.  Stir this allowing everything to mix.  Taste for seasoning and it's done.  I let mine sit on the stove top and reheated it at dinner time, but you could serve it right away.

NOTE - if you choose to do this in your crock pot I would say the cook time on the potatoes would be double on low- so four hours.

For toppings, I put out sour cream and more of the shredded cheddar cheese.  Then I chopped five scallions and fried up bacon and chopped that.  We sprinkled it on top of our soup and then stirred it all together for a delicious and comforting meal.

Although this was filling and had all the makings of a fatty meal - the choices I made did keep it lower in fat than it could have been - rather than using butter I used olive oil, I used no fat half and half rather than cream or regular half and half, a light sour cream, and a skim cheese.  You can't always make things fat free but the low fat options in this soup were not detected and dinner was delicious and full of flavor.

Hope you try this out and let me know what you think!