Yummy Yummy Baked Potato Soup

Last night I made one of our favorite winter dinners - Baked Potato Soup! There is something very comforting about sitting beside the Christmas tree eating warm homemade soup while watching a movie... and that's exactly what we did! So without further ado, here's my favorite baked potato soup recipe!

Sour Cream not pictured because I forgot it and had to run to the store.
I HATE when that happens!

What you're going to need:
2/3 C Butter
2/3 C Flour
7 C Milk
4 Potatoes (baked, cooled, cubed)
*4 Green Onions (sliced)*I don't like onions so I just leave this one out!
12 Slices of Bacon or if you're smart you'll just buy Oscar Meyer real bacon bits... it'll change your life. Seriously.
1 1/4 C Shredded Cheddar
8 Oz Sour Cream
3/4 t Salt
1/2 t Pepper

*Makes 8-10 servings

What you're going to do... it's pretty easy, just requires a lot of stirring:

Butter and Flour mixture

(1) In your biggest pot melt the butter completely and then add the flour and stir until smooth... Probably want your heat on about 3.

(2) Stir in the 7 C of milk gradually. Cook until thickened, stirring constantly and making sure to not let the butter/flour stick to the bottom. You won't see significant thickening until you add the potatoes... this step should take a good 5 minutes. Heat at 6ish.

Oops, meant to take a picture of these cubed but somehow
 got a pic of them sliced... Cut each slice into 4 pieces.

(3) I leave the peel on the potato and cube it because the peel is where the actual nutritional value is... but you can peel it if you want. The benefits of leaving the peel are: you won't notice any difference in taste if you leave it, it gives your soup a little more color, it is the healthy choice and it saves you the time/pain of trying to peel that flippin' hot spud. Add your cubed potatoes (and nasty green onions) and bring to a boil, still stirring constantly. Heat around 8. Once it starts to boil, you'll notice that it thickens up quickly so reduce your heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

*If you want to prepare your soup in advance... this is where you'd stop and stick it in the frig until you were ready to eat it!

(4) Finally add bacon, cheese, sour cream and salt/pepper and stir it all up really good until the cheese melts which will take approximately 2 seconds. (I will confess that I don't even measure the cheese and bacon anymore, I just dump a LOT in and stir! No need to be too exact, I don't think you can ever add too much bacon or cheese.)

(5) Now, this is the top secret, very important step... Your soup is actually already done, but if you want to take it from good to great you should add Tony Chachere's Original Creole. Again, I don't do an exact measurement, I just shake a light coat on top of each individual bowl. I'm telling you this stuff is magic!

So there, you go! One very yummy recipe for Baked Potato Soup... and it wasn't too hard, but everyone will be all impressed that it didn't come out of a bag that reads, "just add milk." Hope you all enjoy this one during these freezing cold days!

Be Blessed!
Raegan