What is the best kind of potato to use for potato soup?

The good news? You can and should use any kind of potato you like, looks good at the store, or happen to already have on hand. As long as they are chopped into bite sized pieces, any potato will work nicely in a soup. There's no hard and fast rule here. But for my money, I like to use a gold or yellow skinned potato, usually the smaller ones, as the skin is much thinner and never requires any peeling. The potato flesh is also very tender, and yields the perfect balance between creamy and firm, which is what we're looking for here.

Do you have to the peel potatoes for potato soup?

Absolutely not! You are certainly welcome to peel whatever you like, but to me, part of the beauty of this recipe is the fact that it comes together in one pot, and requires very little effort on the cooked part. I don't peel my carrots. I wash my mushrooms, I don't bother to wipe them off individually. And I do not peel a single potato. The use of gold or yellow potatoes means you've got a thinner, more tender skin which you won't notice at all when you're eating it. So, don't worry about peeling in this case.

What makes potato soup thick?

Potato soup can be thickened a few different ways, depending on what you feel like doing, frankly. You can blend a little bit of the soup in your blender, pouring that puree back into the pot to give it some extra body and richness. You could use a roux, sprinkling flour or cornstarch over the sauteed vegetables before adding any liquid. Or, as we're doing in this recipe, you can add a slurry, which is nothing more than a little bit of cornstarch or all-purpose flour that is moistened with the hot soup and then add it back into the pot to quickly thicken everything up just a little bit. The way you choose to thicken your soup is personal, and up to you! I typically opt for a slurry or roux because these techniques work very well, and keep me from having to wash my blender.

How do I make bland potato soup taste better?

Any recipe that involves the potato also needs to involve some very generous, very intentional seasoning. Potato soup is one of the most delicious things, so long as it is seasoned properly. Your potato soup is bland? Try adding a little more salt. That's usually the answer to any issue of blandness, no matter the recipe in question. A basic Appalachian style potato soup uses only a handful of simple ingredients, leaning on milk and water and often bouillon to create the brothy soup base. To keep that from veering into bland territory, you can add dried herbs, stock concentrate + actual stock, ample garlic, and always heroic cream cheese to the mix, as we do in this recipe. Blandness need not apply here.

The Coziest Southern Potato Soup to Warm Your Bones (Tater Soup)

Southern Potato Soup (Tater Soup)

Print Recipe

My ultimate Southern Potato Soup delivers big, satisfying flavor in less than 45 minutes all in one pot. This is a vegetarian meal, though it also works very well with hot pork sausage, just saying. Please feel free to tweak the ingredient list to suit your preferences, as several of them are optional. The mushrooms and peas are lovely here, but may be omitted. And as always, the amount of garlic is merely a suggestion. But the more the merrier, in my opinion.

Author: Lauren McDuffie
Yield: Serves 6 to 8 1x
Category: Southern Cooking

Ingredients

Units Scale

Olive oil, for cooking
20-ish ounces yellow or gold (Dutch) potatoes, cut into bite-sized pieces (no need to peel)
2 small onions, diced
3 celery stalks, diced
3 large carrots, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced (no need to peel)
8 ounces Cremini or button mushrooms, sliced (optional)
3 teaspoons dried thyme (Italian seasoning also works nicely, as does Old Bay)
3 teaspoons stock concentrate, any variety you like (I use Better Than Bouillon vegetable or roasted garlic)
5 garlic cloves, minced or grated
32 ounces vegetable or chicken stock
1 heaping cup frozen peas
1 cup half and half
4 ounces cream cheese
3 teaspoons cornstarch or all-purpose flour

Serving suggestions: croutons, sour cream, fresh bread, cornbread, or biscuits

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Instructions

Add a few glugs of oil to a large pot over medium heat. When it’s hot, add the potatoes, onion, celery, and mushrooms. Stirring frequently, cook for 12 to 15 minutes.
Season everything with salt and pepper. Add the thyme, stock concentrate, and garlic, and cook one minute more. Add the stock and give it all a good stir. If the contents of the pot are not fully submerged by the stock, add a little bit of water or extra stock until that is the case. Put the lid on the pot, and allow things to simmer over medium low for about 15 to 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are fork tender.
When the potatoes are tender, remove the lid and add the peas, half and half, and cream cheese, stirring to blend everything in. To thicken the soup, put the cornstarch in a small bowl and add just enough of the hot soup liquid to it to create a smooth mixture (a fork works well here). Pour this slurry back into the pot and bring it up to boil, then reduce to a simmer. At this point, if you decide you want it extra creamy – go ahead and add a healthy pour of half and half until it looks perfect to you. Just check for seasoning again, and you’re good to go.
Season the soup to taste with salt and pepper, and serve topped with freshly snipped chives, sour cream, and any manner of bread you see fit to use.

Notes

1. Add some bay leaves when you add the thyme! I use like 5 of them but you do you there.

2. We’ll wait to salt and pepper the veg until they’ve sautéed for a while, as the salt will pull a ton of moisture out of the mushrooms, and mess with the caramelizing of things. This doesn’t actually matter too much in this recipe, but if you’re ever wondering why recipes don’t have you salt your mushrooms right away, this is typically the reason.

Keywords: Southern Potato Soup (Tater Soup)

Find it online: https://mykitchenlittle.com/2024/01/23/southern-potato-soup/