Loaded Potato Soup
Creamy potato soup wearing all the baked-potato toppings — bacon, cheddar, scallions.
Ingredients
- 4 Potatoes
- 1 Onion
- 300 ml Milk
- 600 ml Stock
- 20 g Butter
- 1 tsp Salt
- 100 g Bacon (optional)
- 80 g Cheddar cheese (optional)
- 4 tbsp Sour cream (optional)
- 2 Scallions (optional)
Method
- Dice the onion and cut the potatoes into small chunks.
- Chop the bacon into small pieces.
- Crisp the chopped bacon in a soup pot over medium heat, then lift it out with a slotted spoon, leaving the fat behind.
- Soften the diced onion in the bacon fat and butter over medium heat until translucent and golden at the edges.
- Add the diced potatoes, the stock, and the salt, then simmer until the potatoes are collapsing and tender.
- Grate the cheddar and slice the scallions while the soup simmers.
- Mash the soup roughly right in the pot until it is part-smooth and part-chunky.
- Stir the milk into the mashed soup and warm gently over low heat until creamy and steaming.
- Ladle into bowls and load each with cheddar, the crisp bacon, the scallions, and a spoon of sour cream.
Tap “Start cooking” for live timers that flag what to get ahead on while something simmers.
About Loaded Potato Soup
Loaded potato soup takes everything good about a loaded baked potato and turns it into a bowl, an American comfort-food classic for cold-weather nights. It starts by crisping bacon and softening onion in the rendered fat, so smoke and savoriness run through the base before the potatoes even go in. The potatoes simmer in stock until they are collapsing, then get roughly mashed right in the pot — a deliberately half-smooth, half-chunky texture that gives body without any need for a blender.
Finished with milk and enriched with butter and sour cream, it eats thick, creamy, and deeply savory, with the potato providing gentle sweetness and the bacon its smoky backbone. The signature move is treating it like an actual loaded potato at the table, crowned with grated cheddar, crisp bacon, and sliced scallions so every spoonful carries a bit of each. It makes a filling main-course soup, best with crusty bread on the side. Keeping some potato chunks intact is what separates this version from a smooth purée and gives it that satisfying, rustic bite.
Loaded Potato Soup: frequently asked questions
How many calories are in Loaded Potato Soup?
A serving has about 448 calories — 17.7g protein, 39.6g carbs, 25.3g fat, 4g fiber. Figures are estimated from the ingredient amounts and will shift with your portions and brands.
Is Loaded Potato Soup gluten-free?
Based on its ingredients, Loaded Potato Soup has no gluten-containing components, so it's naturally gluten-free — as always, check that any packaged ingredients you use are certified gluten-free to be safe.
Is Loaded Potato Soup dairy-free?
Not as written — it uses Cheddar cheese, Milk, Butter and other dairy. Swapping those for a plant-based alternative makes it dairy-free.
How long does Loaded Potato Soup take to make?
About 40 minutes start to finish, but only around 30 of those are hands-on — the rest is largely unattended cooking time you can step away from. In the Homecooked app the timers and parallel steps are sequenced for you so the hands-on part feels even shorter.
Do I need every ingredient to make Loaded Potato Soup?
The core ingredients are essential, but you can leave out bacon, cheddar cheese, sour cream — they're optional and mainly there for extra flavor or finish.
How many servings does Loaded Potato Soup make?
This recipe makes 4 servings. In the app you can scale it up or down and the ingredient amounts adjust automatically.