Creamy Chicken and Potato Soup
This creamy chicken and potato soup is both hearty and delicious. This heart-warming soup features bacon, thyme, and cream. Bacon for that added smoky dimension, thyme for that earthy aromatic touch, and of course heavy cream for flavor and a beautiful creamy texture that is not found in your traditional chicken soup. What’s even better is this soup features rotisserie chicken, giving it that roasted chicken flavor that cannot be found elsewhere, with the added bonus of one less step in the process!
When I developed this recipe, it was -38C with the wind chill where I live. Brrrr to stay the least! What is better than soup for a day like this – nothing if you ask me! This hearty Creamy Chicken and Potato Soup is sure to warm the soul. I filled this soup with all my favorite things – carrots, celery, and potatoes.
Potatoes instead of Noodles
While chicken soup typically features noodles, I thought potatoes would perfectly compliment this chicken soups creamy texture. I used yellow baby potatoes, skin and all. I simply quartered the baby potatoes and added them in, and they were perfect! The baby potato’s beautiful creamy, buttery texture played perfectly with the creaminess of the chicken soup. I also didn’t even notice the skins on the potatoes – as long as the potatoes aren’t over cooked, the skins should stay nicely on the potatoes!
Rotisserie Chicken
I absolutely adore using rotisserie chicken in my chicken based soups! Not only are they easy and reduce the steps needed to make the soup, but they also give the soup a chicken-ey flavor that I find can not be created with making your own chicken. Furthermore, rotisserie chicken, at least where I live, is actually quite cheap! I can get around the same amount of meat for the same price as making my own chicken, without having to do all the work! Perfect, if you ask me!
Bacon
In this Creamy Chicken and Potato Soup I added bacon for an extra flavor dimension. Bacon adds a savory saltiness to this creamy soup, but also adds a nice smokiness to compliment the creamy texture. I fried up the bacon until it was crispy, then set it aside to add later. To ensure that that bacon-ey flavor really came through in the soup, I used the rendered bacon fat to fry the vegetables with! Mmm! The bacon is added to the soup just before serving, to ensure that it stays crispy in the soup. If the bacon sits in the soup for too long, it absorbs some of the liquid and becomes inflated with the liquid and soft in texture. Therefore, if serving this soup in the future, I would suggest storing the crumbled bacon separately, and just adding it to the soup right before eating it.
Get the Recipe: Creamy Chicken and Potato Soup
Ingredients
- 1/2 lb Chopped Bacon
- 1 tbsp Rendered Bacon Fat
- 3 Carrots,, sliced thin (1/4″)
- 2 Celery Ribs,, sliced thin (1/4″)
- 1 Onion,, Diced Small
- 4 Garlic Cloves,, crushed or minced
- 10 cups Chicken Broth
- 6-8 Sprigs of Thyme and a Handful of Parsley,, tied together with twine
- 2 Bay Leaves
- 1 tsp Ground Sage
- 1 1/2 lbs Yellow Baby Potatoes,, quartered
- 1 Chicken Bouillon Cube
- Meat from 1 Rotisserie Chicken,, shredded or chopped up
- 1 cup Heavy Cream
- 1/2 cup Finely Grated Parmigiano Regianno
- Lots of Freshly Ground Pepper,, to your preferred taste
- Salt,, to taste
Instructions
- In a large cold pan, add chopped bacon, then turn the pan on to medium heat. Fry the bacon until crispy, then remove the bacon and place onto a plate fitted with a paper towel to absorb the excess oil. Reserve 1 tbsp of the bacon fat and discard the rest.
- In the same pan, over medium heat, add the onion, carrots, and celery, and fry with the reserved bacon grease. When the carrots are about halfway cooked (about 7-8 minutes), add the garlic and cook for an additional minute.
- Remove the vegetables from the heat, and add to a large soup pot. Add in the chicken broth, thyme/parsley bouquet, bay leaves, ground sage, potatoes, and bouillon cube. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce to medium heat and simmer until potatoes are cooked through and fork tender (about 7-9 minutes).
- Add the shredded chicken, heavy cream, and cheese. Cook for an additional few minutes, or until chicken is warm and the soup begins to simmer again. Remove the thyme/parsley bouquet and the bay leaves. Add crumbled bacon. Then season with salt and lots of pepper.
