Recipe: Potato Soup

Potato soup, hands down, is my favorite soup of all time. But not just any potato soup. THIS potato soup.

This is a recipe that was handed down to my mom which she taught me how to make several  years ago. I think that I followed the actual recipe twice {the time she taught me how to make it and the first time that I made it by myself} and haven't bothered with the recipe since. It's one of those "you know when it's right" type of recipes and luckily, it's a recipe that you can easily modify on the fly to suit your preferences.

Fair warning: this takes a little bit of time but the effort is so worth it for a gigantic pot of delicious potato soup!

Ingredients

1 bag of yukon gold potatoes, peeled & diced

4 stalks of celery, diced

3 medium carrots, peeled

1/2 of a yellow onion, diced*

4 garlic cloves, pressed

3 tbsp. butter

5 tbsp. chicken granules

2 cups milk

1.5 cups sharp cheddar cheese

salt & pepper to taste

*I always substitute minced onion from the spice department since I'm not a huge fan of onion

Directions

1. Add butter, diced celery, diced onion, and peeled carrots to a pot on the stove. Simmer on low for about 5 minutes or until the veggies are tender. Stir frequently.

2. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute.

3. Drop potatoes into the pot and then add water until the potatoes are almost covered up. This is usually 2-2.5 cups of water.

4. Add in the chicken granules, salt, and pepper.

5. Bring pot to a boil and then turn back down to a simmer. Let the soup simmer on the stove for about 20 minutes or until potatoes are soft.

6. Using a potato masher, mash the potatoes until the large pieces are gone.

7. Pour in milk slowly and stir frequently. You can use more or less milk  here, just depends on the consistency you like for your potato soup.

8. Add in cheese and stir until melted.

9. Enjoy!

So here's where you can get creative and modify this recipe to suit your tastes. You can add more or less of any of these: celery, carrots, onion, garlic, milk, cheese, salt, or pepper.

See what I mean? All of those ingredients are totally adjustable which is why this recipe was so difficult to write down. I think I make it different almost every single time.

Either way you make it, it's so good and makes a gigantic batch. I think we got 9 bowls of soup out of this recipe when we made it earlier this week. When I lived by myself? That was lunch & dinner for almost a whole week for me... which was entirely too much. Luckily, this recipe also freezes really, really well.

Try it out sometime!