Lightened Up Baked Potato Soup

Baked potato soup is creamy, carb-y goodness, and it is super filling. This soup is not the kind of soup you start a meal with. This is the kind of soup you unbutton your top button and relax on the couch for two hours afterward. That's a shared soup experience, right?

This lightened up baked potato soup is another recipe we are going to file under "Things my wife has been suggesting I make for a while." I have been hesitant to make baked potato soup for two reasons. Baked potato soup is inherently not the healthiest thing in the world since it is a potato and cream-based soup. And, also, baked potatoes take a stupidly long time to make.

I love baked potatoes, but they have no right to take over an hour to make, so I've been putting this recipe off for a while. Now that we have all the time in the world, I finally found the time to give this a whirl.

How to Bake Potatoes

Baked potatoes are stupid and delicious. They're stupid because they take anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half in the oven. When I posted on my Instagram story about baking potatoes taking forever, people messaged me about different hacks they love.

Some people making them in their Instant Pot. Other people make baked potatoes in their air fryers. I followed the Bon Appetit recipe for baked potatoes. Yes, I had to look up a recipe. I love baked potatoes, but I almost never make them because they take over an hour.

Bacon, Onions, and Cheese - What's not to love?

To start the soup, dice up bacon and fry it up in a stock pot. I like to slice the bacon instead of cooking and crumbling because you can cook all the bacon at once instead of cooking it in shifts. Once you cook your bacon, reserve it for later but leave the bacon grease in the pot.

Next, you're going to dice the onions and fry them up in the bacon grease. Use a wooden spoon to scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the pot; doing this adds the smokiness from the bacon throughout the soup.

You don't just leave the bacon in there because it will get soggy in the soup. I add my bacon in at the very end so it doesn't get chewy. When the onions are finally done (about 5 minutes), you're going to add the garlic and flour which starts the roux.

Making a creamy soup

Typically for a creamy soup, you would add flour and butter, but you can add flour directly to the onions and garlic because the bacon grease is still in the pot.

Once you add the flour, stir it for around and let the grease soak up the flour and cook it for about a minute before adding the cream. For this soup, I use unsweetened cashew milk to make this lighter (more about this below). You can use whatever your favorite milk is. For an extra creamy and indulgent baked potato soup, use whole milk.

Once you add your milk, add the potatoes and bring it to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Once the soup is simmering, taste and season to your liking.

I added 3 tsp of kosher salt and 2 tsp of pepper--this is all about personal preference and the brand of bacon you use. Let simmer for about 10 minutes and add cream cheese and greek yogurt.

Should I blend baked potato soup?

I like a chunky potato soup and would have been totally cool eating the soup as is. Not only does a chunkier soup photograph better (seriously, I didn't realize how hard it is to photograph soup in a desirable way), but eating a chunkier soup makes it feel more like a meal.

My wife likes it smooth. As a compromise, I was going to blend half of the soup, but I accidentally blended the whole thing.

Blending the soup made the soup thicker and creamier than I expected. I should have expected this though because it is the same idea behind my Corn Chowder. The soup was super creamy and amazing.

If you don't have an immersion blender, you have to get on that train and pick one up. I use it all the time. You can find the one I use here. Alternatively, you can mash your potatoes with a fork prior to adding them in the soup.

Baked Potato Soup toppings

I serve this with extra cheese, extra scallions, bacon, Greek yogurt, and *surprise* extra baked potatoes. I didn't know how many potatoes I needed to use for this soup, but I'm not mad. Like I said before, I like a chunky soup so adding cubed up potato at the end was perfect. You should try it.

You can throw in the cheese scallions, and bacon directly into the pot and serve. It would be delicious, people would cheer, and it would be the best. Alternatively, you can serve them all as toppings on the side.

Make loaded potato skins

If you like baked potato soup, chances are you like loaded potato skins. It's the same flavors just in appetizer form. When scooping the potatoes for this recipe, you can save the potato skins and use them to make loaded potato skins.

My oven baked potato skins recipe is great and uses most of these ingredients. Even better, these oven baked potato skins freeze well, and can be reheated in the oven, air fryer, and microwave. Make the soup this week and save the potato skins for a game day treat.

Comfort food at its finest

This soup is so dang filling, and baked potato soup is such a comforting and hearty soup. This was a huge hit with my whole family including my daughter who "doesn't like potatoes" as if that's a real thing. If you make this, and I hope you do, I hope it brings a little bit of comfort to your home as it did to mine

Healthy Baked Potato Soup

Is this soup healthy? Sort of. It is lower calorie and it is more purposeful with the cheese, milk, and bacon. To make this lighter, I substituted my typical whole milk with cashew milk, used less cheese than I would otherwise, and replaced sour cream with Greek yogurt. If making this soup light is your plan, these are all great substitutes that don't undercut flavor.

This does not taste like a "healthy baked potato soup." This is indulgent, creamy, and amazing. There is no hidden cauliflower, no low fat cheese, no turkey bacon. Life is too short for that haha. For those that count calories, this soup is under 250 calories for a 1.25 cup serving. For those that for WW, you can up load this soup recipe directly to your app here.

Yield: 8 servings

Light Baked Potato Soup

Print

Baked potato soup is a hearty, flavor-packed soup and perfect comfort food.  It is creamy, salty, cheesy, carby goodness.  Do yourself a favor, and put this on your meal plan today.

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 25 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Ingredients

• 4 medium-sized baked potatoes (more if you want to garnish with potato–I highly recommend)
• 8 slices of center-cut bacon (I love Wegmans’ brand)
• 2 onions, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 7 cups your preferred milk (for a light baked potato soup, I use unsweetened cashew milk, for a more indulgent baked potato soup, I use whole milk)
• 2 oz shredded cheddar (more if you want extra for garnish)
• 1/2 cup Greek yogurt (more if you want extra for garnish)
• 1 oz Neufchatel cheese (1/3 fat cream cheese)
• 3 scallions, finely chopped
• kosher salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Dice bacon and cook over medium heat in a stockpot until bacon is crisp.  Remove bacon with a slotted spoon, but keep bacon grease in the pot.
2. Cook diced onions until onions are translucent and soft (about 5 minutes).
3. Add garlic and sprinkle the flour all over the onion mixture.  Stir and cook for about 30 seconds.
4. Slowly pour in the cashew milk while stirring to make sure there are no lumps.  Add potatoes and bring to a boil.  Once boiling, reduce to a simmer for about 10 minutes.
5. Taste and season to your liking.  I added 3 tsp of kosher salt and about 2 tsp of black pepper.  Add cream cheese, Greek yogurt, and stir until melted.
6. If you want the soup smooth, blend the soup with an emersion blender.  
7. Fold in cheese and scallions.  Serve and top with bacon, cheese, greek yogurt, and maybe more baked potatoes if you’re feeling wild.

Notes

The nutritional information uses the recipe as written (see cheese and milk notes). For a more indulgent baked potato soup, use fuller fat milk and as much cheese as your heart desires.

If you follow WW, you can directly upload this recipe into your app with this link.

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

8

Serving Size:

1.25 cup
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 241Total Fat: 12gSaturated Fat: 5gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 0gCholesterol: 18mgSodium: 1604mgCarbohydrates: 23gNet Carbohydrates: 22gFiber: 1gSugar: 2gProtein: 11g