Loaded Baked Potato Soup

The first time I ever heard of this soup was in an e-mail from Sweet Tomatoes. Since I love baked potatoes and I love soup I was very excited and made the 35 mile trip to try it with eager anticipation. I was so disappointed! Their soup had so little flavor. I still wanted to try a good loaded baked potato soup so I looked online, found a recipe and tweaked it a bit.
Sheer Loaded Baked Potato Bliss!

Loaded Baked Potato Soup

Ingredients:
12 oz thick sliced Applewood smoked bacon
13-15 med/lg. potatoes, baked

3-4 stalks celery finely diced
2-3 large carrots, peeled, finely diced
1 large onion, finely chopped

1 jalapeno finely chopped
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
4-8 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 cup thinly sliced ham or Canadian Bacon (or mini cubed ham)

6 cups (or 3 cans) chicken broth
2 cups (or 1 can) vegetable broth

1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
½ - 1 cup milk, warmed
1 tablespoon butter (optional)
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed (optional)

1 pint half and half
1 small carton sour cream
1 ½ cups shredded cheddar cheese

Garnish
½ cup sour cream
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup thinly sliced green onion (green part)

Directions:
Cut bacon into chunks, cook in large stock pot until crisp.
Remove the bacon, set aside.  Also remove grease, and discard, reserving about 2-3 Tablespoons
Chop carrots, celery and onion. Use to make mirapoix, in the bacon grease.
While the mirapoix is cooking mash 10 of the potatoes adding warm milk, salt and pepper. You can saute the two cloves of garlic in the butter and add them to the potatoes if you would like. I dice the potatoes with the peel on and toss it all in a stand mixer to mash them.
Peel the remaining potatoes and cut them into bite size chunks, set aside.
This is a slight change from the usual mirapoix step. Before de-glazing the pan add the diced peppers, garlic and ham and saute about 5 minutes, stirring often.

Scoop out most of the veggie and ham mixture. Add a small amount of the broth to de-glaze the pan. Once the pan is de-glazed add the rest of the cooked veggies and ham back to the pot along with the rest of the broth and half & half.
Stir the mashed potatoes into the soup mixing until well combined. Add potato chunks. Heat about 10 minutes.

Add sour cream, cheese and most of the bacon, stir well, heat until sour cream dissolves and cheese is melted.
Stir in half and half
Season with additional salt and pepper to taste. Simmer on low until ready to serve.
Spoon into bowls. Top with a dollop of sour cream, a sprinkle each of bacon, cheese and green onion.

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Tips and Hints

• If you are timid about spicy food still use the jalapeno, but be sure it is seeded with the membrane removed. The dairy products really diminish the heat so you shouldn't need to omit it. To turn up the heat toss in a few more and leave in the seeds, I use about 3 jalapenos
• Try pre-baking the potatoes and pre-cooking the bacon to save time when making the soup.


• Served with some hot crusty bread this soup is hearty enough to make a perfect meal.

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